Long Way Down, Long Way Home
by astrophilia
Summary: When Dean thinks that Sam died in a fire, he goes into a tail spin. Meanwhile Sam wakes up in a hospital with no recollection of who he is.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter One**  
by Steffi

"If the entire house is cursed," Sam said, screwing the cap back on on the gasoline can, "Then we need to burn down the entire house. And I'd feel much more comfortable if you..." he glanced over to Dean, whose face had brightened up a little with anticipation at the words 'burn down' , "...weren't enjoying this so much, pyro," Sam completed the sentence.

"Don't be such a spoil-sport, Samwise," Dean replied. He let the lighter in his hand snap open and close, knowing just how much Sam hated it when he did that. Open and close. Open and close. "As long as I don't light up houses that are actually still inhabited..."

"Yeah, but who knows what's next," Sam snatched the lighter from Dean's hand and put it in his pants pocket.

"Hey, what the...? "

Dean's half horror-stricken, half surprised expression was priceless. He looked exactly like a five year-old who'd just been deprived of his favourite toy.

"Confiscated," Sam informed him with a shrug. He hoisted one of the cans filled with gas into the trunk of the Impala.

Dean walked around his car, opened the door and placed himself behind the steering wheel. Once Sam had closed the trunk, Dean started the engine. His foot sank down on the gas pedal slowly. The Impala rolled forwards, from outside Dean heard Sam exclaim some rather impolite things. Dean laughed, put his right arm over the back of the front seat and turned around a little so he could see Sam. His brother was desperately trying to catch up, appeared next to the passenger side's window, knocked against it, fell back a little, caught up again, fell back and shouted something even less polite. Finally he managed to open the door. He flung himself into the car and pulled the door shut.

"Asshole," he said, out of breath, and sat up straight. His hair lay matted against his forehead with sweat, and he was glaring at his brother furiously.

"Well, well, well Sammy..." Dean's voice had the fatherly reproachful sound to it that Sam hated so much, "We need to work on our shape, eh? I remember the days when it didn't take you that long to catch up with me. But back then, Dad was still training with us. Guess you lost your drive in college, Sammy. Really, one should think you would have, uhm, kept yourself in shape with other things..."

"Don't, Dean..." Sam warned his brother, but Dean was on a roll.

"I mean, don't tell me you were actually _faithful_..."

Dean stopped when he realised what he'd just said, but it was too late.

Later he would regret these words. Later he'd keep playing the scene over and over again in his mind; if just a word had been different or the way he'd said it, maybe if he'd used his brains just this once before opening his big mouth...

Sam stared into the distance, onto the road before them. He didn't say anything, but his eyes had darkened and his lips were pressed into two thin lines. Dean even thought he could hear Sam's teeth grinding. The grim look on Sam's face could even have chased away the Boogeyman, Dean mused.

Later Dean would regret he didn't even try to apologise to Sam and make things right between them. Later he'd ask himself why the hell he had been just as stubborn as their father.

It would be the question that always returned: _why?_

Sam remained quiet, he didn't even bother to complain when Dean put the oldest music cassette he owned (and the one that always grated on Sam's nerves the most) into the player. It was an act of blatant provocation, he knew that as soon as he'd get Sam to talk again they'd make up without actually apologising to each other. It had worked this way all their lives and there was no doubt that it always would. Dean turned up the volume as much as he could, and then, on top, he started to sing along to the "Immigrant Song" at the top of his lungs. Knowing, of course, that there was possibly no song on earth Sam hated more. Out the corner of his eye Dean watched his brother closely, but Sam didn't react in the least. Eventually Dean gave up trying. When they reached the house ten minutes later, Sam's expression was as stony as ever.

Dean parked the Impala at a safe distance and leaned a little forward so he could view the building better.

There, in the middle of nowhere, stood an old house that wasn't much different from any other old, haunted house. Fifty years ago a man had had kidnapped, molested and finally murdered several young girls. Ever since the spirits of the girls had killed every man who'd dared to enter the building.

The brothers had tried to salt and burn the bones but it hadn't done any good. Apparently when you murdered innocent children you were playing in a whole different league, even in the world of the abominable and vengeance-worthy. Eventually Sam and Dean had had only one option left – to burn the house itself down.

"Ready?" Dean asked. Sam didn't reply. Wordlessly he opened the door and got out of the car.

"O-kay," Dean sighed, pulling off the ignition key, and followed his brother.

It was warm outside, it hadn't been raining in weeks and dust rose from beneath their feet as they walked to the back of the car. Dean opened the trunk and heaved out the cans. Sam grabbed one.

_Come on. Tell him you didn't mean it._

"Sam...?"

His brother turned around. It was plain that he was still angry, he was gripping the can so hard his knuckles had turned white.

"What?" he snapped.

_Come on. Tell him. You hate it when you fight._

There was a silence that reminded Dean of the quiet in a western movie, before the cowboys duelled with each other. The fingers dodging around the gun, both waiting for the other to draw, he was half expecting some tumble-weed to go rolling by, but nothing happened.

"Forget it..." Dean finally said, shaking his head a little. His voice sounded more like their father's than he'd intended to when he added: "Come on."

They walked the short distance up to the house. Sam shuffled after Dean with eyes cast down on the ground, and despite his almost gigantic size he looked more like a petulant toddler rather than a mid-twenties ex-college student. The brothers stopped when they reached the porch and surveyed the building. It was the middle of the day and unlikely that they were in any danger just being here. Lost and blood-thirsty souls usually never appeared before dusk – but these here were exceptionally lost and bloody-thirsty spirits.

"Come on, Sammy..."

"It's Sam..." Sam snarled. He didn't even bother to look at Dean. His eyes were fixed on the front door.

"Please yourself," Dean shrugged. He knew his brother, he'd come around sooner or later. He'd possibly walk around with a gloomy expression for an evening or two, play the lonesome wanderer and then his anger would evaporate.

Of course Sam could be stubborn, too – but usually only when the opposing party chose to be unforgiving, as well.

For years Sam had ignored his family and not talked to them, Dean hadn't forgotten – how could he? After all it had been him who'd been stuck in the middle when Sam had his big fight with Dad. And it was him who Sam had blamed afterwards for always taking their father's side. It had been Sam who'd decided not to talk to Dean any more as well. To pretend he didn't have a brother, because in his anger Dean and their Dad had melted together into one person. _One_ person who'd accused Sam of being selfish. _One_ person who'd told him he needn't bother to come back. _One_ person who'd tried to deny him what he wanted so badly.

Dean opened the can and spread the gasoline all around the house. He went around the building, throwing the gas up the walls, while Sam took care of the porch. Neither went into the house itself. If those spirits couldn't be destroyed by usual means than perhaps they didn't stick to the rules of "No ghosts in daylight" either.

The gasoline pooled on the porch, and from the look of it the acrid smell almost made Sam retch – Dean knew how much his brother hated that smell. When they got home, to the motel, Sam would probably take a shower first thing.

There was a rustle and a thud from inside the house, and an uneasy feeling crept all the way through Dean's body. One of those uneasy feelings that made him get up at night and check whether the doors and windows were locked. Dean watched Sam forrow his brows in concentration, "Something wrong?" he yelled across the site. Sam only shook his head,

"No." Aha. Still pissed off.

Dean shrugged, and threw the can high through the air. It landed in some distance with a bang.

"Fancy a bonfire?" Dean asked. Sam pulled the lighter from his pocket. "Remember, throw it in and run away."

"I'm not an idiot," Sam rolled his eyes and flicked the lighter open, a small flame appeared.

Dean saw the cold hands grabbing his brother from behind far too late. Before he'd realised what was happening they'd pulled Sam into the house and neither of them could do anything about it. Sam fell to the ground with a pained cry, and was dragged through the door across the dusty floor. He'd let go of the lighter, and the moment it hit the wooden porch the house went up in flames.

The blaze feasted greedily on the rotten, dry wood and everything that was inside the building was engulfed by the flames. The fire went up into the sky, thankful for the heat and wind, encircling the house.

For minutes Dean did nothing but stare, trying to grasp what was happening. He'd seen Sam tumble and after he'd been dragged into the house, the door had shut. Then, suddenly, everything had been on fire. How lovely the flames looked. Yellow and red against the blue sky. How warm it had grown. Sam didn't like it when it got too warm.

When Dean finally dialled the number of the fire department, hypnotised by the sight of the fire, he was completely calm. He heard his voice telling the lady on the other end of the line the address of the house, and when the firemen arrived he was still standing where he'd stood all the time, watching the fire motionlessly. He barely heard their cries as they rolled out the hose and told him to stand back.

How fast fire could destroy, he thought. It was amazing, really. He remembered Lawrence, their old home. It had burned down just as fast back then, but their father had made it out in time and so would Sam.

He didn't respond when the firemen tried to pull him aside, away from the fire, and asked him whether there was someone still inside the house. He couldn't avert his eyes from the sparks and flames bouncing happily into the sky.

Water fell onto the fire, _Don't!_ the voice in his head screamed, it sounded sad, _You're killing it!_ It was much too beautiful to be murdered in such an undignified way; it was so glad to be alive after all...

Dean tilted his head and marvelled at the play of colours, the wave of heat that hit his body made him shiver...where was Sam? It was about high time he turned up here and made one of his terribly clever remarks.

When only smoke was still coming up from the house and the ruins stood out against the night sky as black shadows, Dean wasn't standing in front of the building any longer but was perched on the back of an ambulance. A woman shone a small torch into his eyes, asking him questions but he couldn't hear her voice so he just smiled. Her lips kept on moving. He grew impatient. Sammy was late. Well, he'd have a word or two with his brother when he returned.

"Was anybody in there?"

Suddenly he could hear the voice of the paramedic loud and clear. It was like surfacing from under water. He turned his head so he could look her in the eye, she appeared to be worried. He didn't reply, but images were coming back now. Sam and the lighter. Sam being dragged into the house. The house that burned down to the ground. Sam being late.

"My brother," Dean said. He didn't recognise the ring of his own voice. It was alien to him, someone else was talking, not him.

And for a short moment he realised he'd lost Sammy.

-TBC- .


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Two**  
by Steffi

The ashes were hot, making the skin on his hands blister, but Dean didn't even realise it. In the darkness, he felt his way like a blind man. He picked up a charred piece of wood, which scorched the palm of his hand and yet he could not let go of it. Someone pulled him back and knocked the wood from his hand, it was one of the firemen. He grabbed Dean by the shoulder and said something but Dean couldn't understand the words. Was he under water? The other man's voice damn sure sounded like it.

Sam had to be here, somewhere. Somewhere beneath the ashes and rubble and the smoke his little brother had to be. Surely Sam would push aside some planks and shout "Gotcha!" any moment now, and his weird laughter would echo over the scenery. That peculiar, girly sound that didn't seem to fit the tall guy that was Dean's brother.

But Sam didn't turn up.

He didn't tap Dean on the shoulder and said "You really thought I'd kicked the bucket, eh?"

And Sam wasn't already waiting for his brother in the Impala when Dean turned around to check.

Sam wasn't here.

The firemen began to secure the site, wood crunched beneath their feet and in Dean's mind it was his brother's bones they were walking upon. The bones were being smashed under the firemen's weight as they were ruthlessly trampled on. They were being reduced to ashes. The thought made Dean's stomach turn upside down and he threw up.

He retched over and over again, even when his stomach was emptied, he just couldn't stop. Hands on the ground, digging into the soaked soil, dirt eroding into his sore fingers and palms. Stones gouged their way through Dean's jeans into the flesh of his knees, he didn't feel it.

_Sam. Sam. Sam._

He still didn't understand. A couple of hours ago he'd, for a short moment, seen clearly. Sam was dead. He'd understood it back then that his brother was gone, had been devoured by flames. But now his mind had gone into denial, because it just couldn't be true. No way. There was no way Sam could have burned up in there. In his mind Dean strung together the words, _Sam is dead_, but they just didn't make any sense. Like those algebraical formulas he'd never understood at highschool. He knew the letters, but he couldn't grasp the equation.

The police report later said that no one inside that house had had any chance of survival. That everybody who'd been inside had burned up completely. Which was another thing Dean could just not comprehend. Sam was just – gone. As if he'd never existed. His stuff in the trunk, his clothes, his personal belongings was everything his brother had left behind. That and some memories. How could that be? How could someone just be erased from the Earth like that?

Later Dean also found out that his memory didn't necessarily match those of the firemen. He couldn't remember how he'd broken away from the men and run to the smouldering ruins of the house. All he could remember was picking up the piece of wood. How he'd gotten his hand bandaged remained another mystery to him. The report said he'd been attended to at the ambulance and then taken to the police station. Dean could only remember the police station.

He'd been cold, sitting in the hallway, waiting. Sam was able to cope with cold better than him. Dean had always thought that in a past life, Sam had been a polar bear. Sam would make fun of him when he caught his brother shivering from cold while Sam himself was still fine not even wearing a jacket.

They brought Dean to another room, an office, and questioned him. But the questions made as little sense as the words that built the sentence _Sam is dead_, namely none. He just couldn't understand them, as if he'd forgotten his own native language. He heard words like "arson" and "report" and "court". What did they have to do with him? Dean remained silent, and stared at the officers confusedly, what did they want from him?

Eventually, after not a single word had come from Dean's mouth, the officers dismissed their suspect. They reminded him to return the next day, and drove him to the motel in Dean's Chevy Impala. He was accompanied to the door, reminded yet again to come back to the station the next day, and then they left him alone.

It was pitch black in their room, but Dean didn't switch on the light at first. Maybe, if he really believed in it, Sam would be lying in his bed, fast asleep, and the whole thing had only been a prank. An evil prank, but just a prank. Or maybe if he lied down and closed his eyes he'd wake up the next morning and everything had only been a nightmare.

His hand fumbled for the light switch, _please let Sam be there_, the lights went on and Dean opened his eyes.

Sam's bed was untouched.

His jacket was still hanging over the back of the chair just the way he'd left it. He'd only been wearing his dark blue shirt.

Dean's legs started to tremble, and he felt like he was suffocating. The stumbled forward, towards the bed, and fell, landing half on the bed and half on the ground. He panted, something lanced up his throat or at least it felt like it, he couldn't breathe and no matter how hard he tried he could not get his lungs to fill with air. It took him a moment until he could force his body to breathe in and out again – _in and out. In and out. _

He remained in that awkward position and listened. Listened for noises from the bathroom or the corridor, maybe Sam was coming after all.

Nothing happened.

Finally, Dean straightened a little. He felt oddly numb, and the wounds and blisters on his hands still didn't hurt. He was like a shell with nothing inside. Like a vacuum.

In slow motion he reached for the car keys the officer had put in his jacket pocket and straightened completely. He didn't think, or consider, he just followed his feet which – with an astounding amount of certainty – left the room and walked over to the Impala. He got into the car, watched his hand putting the keys into the ignition and moving the steering wheel; he saw his feet stepping on the brakes and gas pedal – and still it felt like someone else, not him, was driving. And it was only when the car stopped that Dean knew what the destination of his excursion.

He sat there for a good while before he could bring himself to get out. The air was still warm, sultry now, the sky glittering with stars. In a distance of about hundred meters there was a forest, its dark shape rose high against the sky. Nocturnal birds tweeted and cried, crickets chirped. It was a lovely night.

It was a horrible night.

The soil beneath Dean's feet was now softened by the water and no longer dusty. So much water had poured down onto the ground the soil had not been able to soak it all up, despite the drought. Dean's shoes left traces in the clay.

He stopped. Before him a black, square and unearthly landscape spread where the house had been. Objects protruded into the air like mountain peaks. And the smell of smoke and fire still lingering to the place, the air.

A deer stepped from the wood and looked at Dean with a mixture of curiousity and wonder. Ears erected it seemed just as perplexed to find someone else here as Dean was. It craned its neck a little, sniffing, then it disappeared back into the forest. Dean turned his head again, focusing on the rubble in front of him.

Then, all of a sudden, his legs gave out under him. He fell to his knees, his body started to hurt fiercely now as the numbness vanished from his head. It made room for the questions, thoughts, images and noises that now swirled in his head until he thought he could no longer bear it. It became so much Dean covered his ears with his hands and for the first time in all this years prayed for his life.

When the pain set in he couldn't move his sore hands any longer, and he felt the burn of tears in his eyes. Not only because of pain, but because of despair.

The vacuum, the shell that was his body filled with everything he'd suppressed before. Grief, fear, despair, they all came at once, and they all cried in unison: _You lost Sammy._

"Sam." Dean whispered into the silence. It was the first time he'd spoken his brother's name since the fire. It didn't sound right. To say the name and know that Sam would hear it never again. That the person the name belonged to was gone and would never return. He now remembered Sam's screams and cries for help he'd heard through the roaring of the fire.

_Sam is dead_, the words rushed through his mind and finally they began to make sense. His little brother, Sammy, the tall guy with the girly laughter – he was dead. Gone. Burned up. Like his mom. Dean's lips curled up to a bitter smile. Oh, the irony.

He didn't think about what this meant to him. That once again Sam had left him only now for good; that he was alone again. That he'd never again hear Sam's voice arguing with him, that his brother would never return to college.

Instead he looked at the burned soil and tried to comprehend that Sam didn't _exist_ anymore. He couldn't. How was that possible, a world without Sam?

"Sammy?", Dean said abruptly. It was weird but he could have sworn he could feel Sam's presence. As if Sam was there and listening. Could that be?

There was hardly anything Dean would have put past Sam, and Dean would have believed anything if only it meant that Sam was still alive – somehow.

Then another thought crossed his mind. What if Sam, too, had become a restless soul, a ghost? After all Sam had been angry when the ghosts had took him, when he'd died. What if Dean had made him into a restless spirit? His heart felt like it stopped for a moment, and –panicking- he ran over to the Impala to fetch his EMF meter. Fingers trembling he switched it on, almost scared of what he might find, but the meter did not read any activity. Dean breathed out, and put the meter away. He didn't know whether he was supposed to be happy or sad. His hands were still shaking.

"Sammy?", he asked again. "Are you here?"

No, his brother wasn't there, the night remained still. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered.

It occurred to Dean he hadn't yet cried. Wasn't he supposed to? Wasn't that the custom when someone you loved died? But he couldn't. The tears behind his eyes were burning, he could feel them, but he could not shed them. This right here was all he had to offer.

"Sammy...I'm sorry. About earlier. What I said. I didn't mean..."

He fell silent. What the hell was he doing here? Sam hated these sentimental talks. On second thought, actually it was him, Dean, who hated them.

"I have to go," Dean continued absent-mindedly, eyes averted.

He couldn't think of anything else to say. If Sam heard him, what was there to say? What, besides voidness and irrelevances? What were his problems, his fears compared to death? And if Sam didn't hear him, what was the point in lingering here?

A shiver ran down Dean's spine. All he wanted was to leave this horrible place. Panic-stricken he raced to his car, stumbled and fell, rose, didn't look back, started the engine and reversed away as fast as he could. Sweat emerged on his forehead, his heart was beating at doubled speed, he had to get away. He drove to the motel, packed his and Sam's stuff in a hurry and disappeared into the darkness.

Dean didn't return to the site of the fire. He left it behind and swore to himself he'd leave his pain there, too. He pulled out without any plan, any destination, in the dim hope that distance would make it easier. And he vowed to himself that he'd personally kill each and everyone of these cursed ghosts, spirits, wendigos, vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. He would make sure that not one more person was going to die at their hands, or claws.

-TBC- .


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Three**  
by Steffi

Dimly he heard a child's voice, it was light and very, very far away. Only a whisper in the darkness surrounding him. Another voice was added:

"Who's that? How did he get here?"

That was, indeed, a very good question. How _had_ he gotten here? And where the hell was 'here'? He felt sick – had he fallen? His head hurt, there was a throbbing pain behind his temple. His limbs felt heavy and stiff, the skin horribly tight. Cold crept up his body. The ground beneath him was soft, and damp. Was he in a forest? Were those leaves he was lying on? How long had he been here?

"Quick, go get Mom!" the first voice shrieked. It sounded frightened. A rustle next to him, someone had gotten closer. "Hello?" the child asked, he wanted to reply but then he lost himself in the dark again, and everything got quiet.

Vaguely he could hear the sound of engines, people were talking in a fluster. Great, where was he now? Things were different. He was no longer bedded on leaves, but on something else, equally soft. He was a little warmer, too. Was he in a car? There was a jolt, a rumble as the car or whatever this was took a turn. It was then he noticed the siren. An ambulance? He dozed off again.

The next time he regained consciousness the noise of the engine and the rumble were gone. Things had definitely gotten quieter, in fact, it was perfectly still but for a dull and rather annoying beeping sound coming from his left side. Then it dawned on him. Oh Christ, was he in hospital?

Contently he noticed his violent headache was gone, and whatever they'd done to his arms and legs, they'd stopped hurting quite so much. Well, at least that was something.

Then something else occurred to him: he didn't have the faintest idea who he was. Let alone how and why he'd been brought here.

That couldn't be, could it?

He tried to remember, remember something, _anything_ but his attempts remained futile, there wasn't anything. Not even the slightest clue, nothing. It was like someone had swept his mind blank. Like someone had reformatted a computer hard drive.

He opened his eyes abruptly and blinked, his vision was blurry and it took a moment until it slowly began to clear up. At first the brightness almost blinded him; the bed, the walls, the ceiling, the furniture – everything was so white and sterile. Oh yes, he definitely was in a hospital. He realised his arms and legs were bandaged.

Over the back of a chair close to the bed someone had placed a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt. The clothes were dirty with soot, fire had burned a hole into the fabric of the shirt. Did those clothes belong to him?

God, what had happened to him? What the hell was going on? He heard the beeping from the monitor next to him getting faster, he broke out into a sweat, his pulse was racing.

Something must have alarmed the nurses – he wasn't an expert (or at least he didn't think he was) but he mused the nurses around here didn't possess psychic abilities. A young woman with short, black hair came running into the room, glancing quickly at the monitor, before she rushed to his side and asked:

"What's wrong? Are you in pain?"

He shook his head, struggling for air.

He didn't know who he was. God, why couldn't he remember? How was it possible that everything was just...gone?

"Please, would you please calm down!" The nurse reached for his hand. He read her name on the batch, it said 'Mary' – the name seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it.

"I – I can't remember anything!"

He'd meant to make it a scream, to holler it, to clarify this wasn't a fucking joke, but instead it came out as a broken, barely audible whisper. Was this his voice? Was that what he sounded like? He'd expected something else, though he wasn't sure what exactly.

For the fraction of a second the nurse stared at him completely stunned, helpless, before she collected herself again. She started stroking his arm, at least the part that wasn't thickly bandaged. Her voice adapted a warm, deep tone:

"Just calm down, okay? I will call for the doctor, I'm sure he can help. I need you to calm down, do you understand?"

He nodded though he hadn't, in fact, understood anything. Calm down? What did she know – she still knew who she was! He forced himself to breathe in and out, to take deep breaths. _Steady. Stay calm. There must be a way to set things straight. Really, there must be. Someone's bound to know who you are. Then everything will come back to you, you've seen it on TV before – have you? Have you seen it on TV before?_

When nurse Mary finally returned with the doctor his pulse had gone back to normal at least – well, almost normal. He even felt a little dozy, probably due to the painkillers. The doctor was an elderly guy who was bald except for some wisps that were fighting their ground at the sides of the man's head.

"Nurse Mary said you believe you've got amnesia?"

"Well I can't remember anything so my guess would be, yes." he snapped. Oh hell, was he always like that? Belligerent? If that was true he'd definitely have to do something about it.

"Calm down..." the doctor said and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, almost like a priest.

"You go calm yourself down," he snarled. Oh, that had been mean.

The doctor sighed.

"I know it's scary but you need to calm down. Your anger will get you nowhere. " The doctor made a short pause. "I won't lie to you, amnesia's not easy to treat. Almost impossible. We'll run you through neurological tests as soon as your burns have healed, but I'm afraid there's nothing you can do but wait and see. Usually the memory returns sooner or later."

"And what if it doesn't?"

The doctor didn't reply.

Burns. Had he been in a fire? Nurse Mary told him that he'd been found in a forest near a house that had burnt down to the ground the day before. His eyebrows went up in surprise and he asked:

"What the hell would I have been doing in an old, burning house?"

"That's what we've been asking ourselves. The police suspects it was arson. We notified the authorities about your case, should someone ask for you. They told us there was a man at the site of crime, claiming his brother had died in the fire. We assume he was talking about you."

The thoughts in his head began to spin. He had a brother? Where was he? Why wasn't he here? Did they maybe not like each other? Why would his brother believe he was dead? And if the guy had indeed been his brother, why did no one know who he was, where he came from? Mary seemed to have guessed his thoughts, because she quickly added:

"The man they found, he was in shock, and wouldn't answer any of their questions. He wouldn't even give his name, least of all yours. He disappeared in the following night. They're investigating him, and you as well."

Oh, that was just perfect. So, not only was he someone who'd apparently been abandoned by his family, on top of that his family was a bunch of criminals. Heck, he _was_ a criminal. Arson – what was next? Credit card fraud? He sighed.

"No one else's been asking for me?" he asked. Nurse Mary shook her head, "No, sorry."

"No one?"

"No one," she paused, then continued quietly: "We've given your photo to the newspapers but so far no one could identify you. "

He didn't answer. So, in conclusion, maybe one fine day he'd remember who he was and where he came from, but until then he'd be stranded her, without identity. Neat.

"The police would like to question you.", Mary said.

Two police officers came to talk to him the next day. They asked him a lot of questions; what had he been doing by the house? Had he set it on fire? If not him, who else? Could he remember how he'd gotten into the forest?

He had no answers; was tempted to make things up instead – and that scared him.

The other man whom they'd found at the site, the man that had called the fire brigade – who was that? The man had refused to reveal his name, had told them his brother had been in the house – did that mean anything to him?

No, it didn't.

They ran neurological tests, told him to take it easy – of course they did that, after all, they weren't in his fucked up situation. When they transferred him to the neurological ward after ten days (after the burns had healed reasonably, though he'd probably carry away some scars) he wasn't any further than the day he'd woken up here, in hospital. They told him this was perfectly normal – but he had no idea how things would turn out, and he was beginning to get really scared. He was near panicking.

Usually there were relatives, family members to support you and hold your hand as time went on. People who told you everything would be all right, that helped you returning to your old life. Usually you had a driver's license people could identify you from. Usually someone recognised you from the photo in the newspapers.

His family on the other hand apparently either believed he was dead or did not care to see him. He hadn't carried any form of ID with him when they'd found him – he couldn't offer an explanation for that, and neither could the nurses and doctors. Most likely he'd lost his wallet in the house, if he'd indeed been in there. And the appeal in the newspapers had remained fruitless.

They were running out of options. He couldn't stay here for the rest of his days, and what if his memory never returned? What would he do?

One of the male nurses from the neurological ward seemed to be thinking along the same lines. One day he asked if it wouldn't be better to go by a temporary name? Something like Tom perhaps?

From that moment on he was Tom. Not Tommy, he hated it when the orderly, whose name was Sean, called him by that stupid nickname. Sean usually dropped by when there was nothing else to do and then he brought Tom books and magazines. He said that sometimes all it took for memories to return was a book one had read before. Of course they couldn't be certain what kind of books Tom had read in his life, if he'd read books at all – but it was worth the try, and it was definitely better than just to sit and wait and do nothing.

Tom liked Sean. Sean was all right.

There was something that bothered him, though. Or maybe bothered was too strong, it was more subtle than that. He had a funny feeling whenever Sean entered the room, and it wasn't even Sean himself, it was the badge he wore, with his name. "Sean" – it made Tom flinch every time he read the name but he couldn't make head nor tails of it.

He tried desperately to remember. With every day he stayed at the hospital he felt more and more that he was running out of time. Sometimes he would be staring at a spot on the wall, trying to let his mind wander in whatever direction it thought to be right, sometimes he ordered himself to fucking remember already – but his attempts were in vain. It was like something was blocking his memory - he tried to remember, but he couldn't. There was this invisible barrier that wouldn't give in.

"Maybe it's no coincidence." Sean said one day, "Maybe your subconscious does it on purpose. Maybe your past is too horrible to remember?"

"You think?"

Sean shrugged: "It's possible. But I'm not a therapist, just an orderly."

Sometimes while Tom was watching TV it occurred he actually remembered something – or more, he didn't actually remember as such, but it sometimes happened that he tuned into a film and instantly knew what the film was called, who was in it and how it was going to end. It most often happened to him when he watched scary or horror movies – which led him to believe he was a fan of brutal and scary films. And an arsonist on top. Oh, and his family was ignoring him, of course.

But he could never remember where and when he'd seen the films before, or with whom – and that almost drove him insane. He was so close, so damn close to retrieving a piece of his past but at the last step, the access to his memory, remained denied to him. Maybe Sean was right after all, and his subconscious was trying to protect him.

At least the police passed on making a report for arson. The building had been old, and uninhabited for a while, and Tom presumed the effort of proving someone guilty who couldn't remember a damn thing was just too much. Especially considering nobody really cared about the house.

Of course he was relieved about that, but in comparison to his other problems the impending report had seemed irrelevant anyway. So, he was no longer a criminal to the police. Didn't change the fact he'd most likely set a house on fire. Why had he done something like that? What explanation was there? Why did no one know who the hell he was?

People didn't just appear out of thin air. They had a life they could return to, no matter how hard and hopeless it seemed. They had other people who belonged to them.

But he didn't. He was all on his own, and he didn't have a life, none that he knew of. He would have to try and rustle one up. He had no idea how. He couldn't just drop by a supermarket and buy one.

Life was something you built, like a house. But neither did he have construction plans, nor the means and tools – and no one who would help him.

In fact, his future looked rather grim.

-TBC- .


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Four**  
by Steffi

Two whole weeks passed by before Dean had finally plucked up the courage to call his Dad and leave him a message on his voice mail. To tell him about the job that had gone wrong, about the fire. About Sam's death. He told his Dad about everything that had happened, apologised for having failed him – and switched the cell phone off. The next morning he tossed it into a lake near the motel where it sank to the bottom.

He bought a new cell phone and prayed his father wouldn't find out the number. The thought of having to justify himself, even of just having to answer John's questions had him panicking. Yes, he had let Sam go too close to the house. Yes, he should have known. No, he didn't know what the hell he'd been thinking. Yes, Dean knew why his father was disappointed in him and didn't want to see him any more. Yes, he understood it, all of it.

How could he have done that? How was it possible to have failed so completely, so unforgivably?

Dean was fairly sure he'd never talk to his Dad again, let alone meet him face to face. It was the only logical consequence that could result of his actions, his failure. To Dean, it was a certainty. He had lost Sammy and consequently his father – he was alone now.

The thought frightened him, even if he wouldn't admit it to himself. He was alone again, naturally, and he perceived it as a justified punishment for what he'd done. He deserved nothing less. And he'd lost every chance to bring back his family again, it occurred to him now. Because with Sammy gone, and his father mad at him, there was no family left he could have brought back together. He had failed in every possible way.

The first couple of days after Sam's death Dean didn't really miss his brother. It didn't feel like he was dead. More like Sam had gone to visit some friends. He'd done that before those past months, whenever they'd been in the area Sam had called his friends, they'd picked him up and he'd spent some time with them. Spent some time being normal. And he'd always returned afterwards.

So Dean rented a motel room and waited. What exactly he was waiting for he didn't really know – a miracle perhaps. He was strangely calm and composed, as if he'd been wrapped up in cotton or pumped full of drugs. A voice in the back of his mind kept nagging and asking whether that was normal and shouldn't he be crying?

But he simply couldn't. He couldn't even cry if he tried. If there were tears that wanted to be cried then they didn't show. And he wasn't too unhappy about that.

Tears wouldn't bring Sam back. Only if they could have brought him back, would Dean have cried, sobbed, wept.

He bought some newspapers and began to look for articles that sounded like supernatural things had happened or were happening, that sounded like a job. There were a few unsolved deaths and missing friends, mothers, fathers and children. Dean circled them with a red pen, there was a whining squeal as Dean pulled the pen over the paper. The noise had always driven Sam mad, and of course Dean had started doing it on purpose after Sam had told him about it. Of course he had.

He heard Sam snarl "Stow it," and turned around abruptly, halfway expecting to see his brother standing before him but there was no one. No one but himself in the room. He felt his heart sink a little. It had seemed so real, he'd almost felt Sam's breath close to his ear. The intonation, the words. He didn't even realise he was shivering and continued to mark possible jobs. Listening and hoping he'd hear Sam again, but nothing happened.

He highlighted everything that appeared fairly odd or weird. The pen slid over the paper until every page was full of marked, crossed out or circled articles. He wanted to make sure. Wanted to be certain that when he left this town nothing evil, nothing supernatural remained. He'd purge the town, like he'd purge every other town. There was no time to lose.

Dean spotted Sam everywhere, at every street corner. When he returned to the motel Sam was sitting on his bed watching TV. When Dean ordered food Sam was standing in front of him in the queue. When he was driving in his car Sam was suddenly sitting in the passenger seat and talking to him. Complaining about the music. Or about their Dad. There was one time where Dean almost caused an accident from shock and surprise. He pulled the wheel over frantically and the car ground to a halt with the tires making a squeaking sound.

"Dude, pay more attention when you drive!" Sam said, the corner of his mouth twisted into a smile and the next moment he was gone. Dean remained seated, unmoving, his hands were curled around the steering wheel and wouldn't let go. He was trembling violently, and it took him several minutes until he had calmed down enough to drive on.

At night, when it was dark and he was lying in his bed he could have sworn he could hear Sam breathe in the other twin bed. The rustle of the blanket as Sam rolled over to his side. The long, steady breaths. Sometimes, Sam talked to him.

"Dean, you all right?"

"I'm fine," Dean would reply into the silence. He was perfectly aware he was hallucinating, that it wasn't Sam's spirit – Sam's bones were burnt after all. Sam wasn't here, he was dead – but it felt so good to hear his voice that Dean honestly didn't care. Those were the times when Dean thought he'd be crying any moment now the tears that had to be buried somewhere, he could feel them piling up – and yet he never shed them. Couldn't.

"You're a liar," Sam's voice answered. Dean heard him chuckle quietly.

"Sam," was all that Dean said, but he received no answer, his brother was gone again and had left him, Dean, alone.

Dean would have liked to be with his father. He would have liked someone to be there and tell him everything would be fine, eventually. Tell him it hadn't been his fault. That Sam hadn't been angry with him when he died. Dean couldn't stop thinking about their silly fight, he played it over and over in his head, God, why had he been such an idiot? But how could he have known he'd never get the chance to apologise and make up for it? And still he could not help but feel guilty. Maybe his anger had been the reason why Sam had been so reckless, careless. Maybe everything would have turned out differently had Sam not been so mad. Maybe. So many Maybes.

But Sam was dead. Nothing would bring him back. And he, Dean, would have to learn to live with that.

Dean woke from his sleep because someone had called his name. Of course it was Sam – well, not really of course. _His_ Sam. His imagination. Amazing how easily his mind was willing to play along. His senses were tricking him, fooling him, and he welcomed it. Sam wasn't here, but it was nice to believe he was. And if only that meant that for a little while Dean didn't feel like a complete failure. That for a little while the voice that kept whispering _Sam's dead and it's your fault_ into Dean's ear disappeared.

"Sam?" he asked. If he hadn't known better he would have been sure that someone was pacing up and down in his room and finally sat down on the other bed. Dean could almost make out the silhouette in the dark, the way Sam ran his hand over his face. It was scary. For the first time in his life Dean was genuinely creeped out. Even though he knew that his senses were just making everything up.

"Dean," Sam's voice said. "I gotta talk to you."

Dean didn't reply, aware of the absurdity of this situation. Hell, was he finally losing it now? He almost wished for it, if that meant things would get easier, calmer, less chaotic. Insanity was better than this, if it meant he could have these conversations forever. He wanted to believe in this so much.

"Dean, I'm worried about you,"

"Why?" Dean whispered, hoping that way the people in the room next door wouldn't hear his conversations with his dead brother. It was none of their business. Plus, communicating with his imagined dead brother at the volume of a mountebank seemed wrong somehow.

"Because of what's going to happen,"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Because of what you will become, Dean,"

"Is this merely a speculation or an actual premonition of yours, Sammy?"

There was muffled laughter, it was Sam's laughter and then again it wasn't. It sounded bitter. Dean received it instead of a verbal reply.

"Don't worry about me," Dean spoke into the silence, wondering whether his brother could actually hear him. Somewhere. Maybe from above.

"If you were in my place, wouldn't you worry?"

Dean closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, "I guess I would,"

"I'm scared for you,"

"You don't have to be,"

"Yes," Sam replied, "I do."

The next day came and the hunt, Dean's hunt, began. He canvassed the houses of the victims, questioned family members and neighbours. Made up stories to be invited into the buildings, secretly measured electromagnetic traces. He searched the internet, paid the libraries a visit, read old dusty books with letters he could barely decipher until his head began to hurt. He kept on reading, even when his eyes grew sore and his back was aching like mad from sitting bent over the books for hours. He just couldn't stop. Time was working against him. And who knew how much time he had left to kill as many of those supernatural sons of bitches as possible. He read on into the early hours of the morning, until he finally fell asleep over the books, still dressed. Although he hadn't felt tired at all.

He expelled a poltergeist the next day and burned the bones of a black man who once had been lynched by the local townspeople and whose spirit was now trying to kill their children. Dean went to bed late, and only allowed himself a few hours of sleep before he left the town first thing in the morning.

Something drove him, forced him to keep moving. A restlessness he'd never known before. The feeling of having more to do than he could ever possibly achieve. And still having to try. There wasn't an hour, a minute, a second to lose.

Two spirits were wasted. Thousands more were still out there.

It didn't even occur to him that he was trying to do the impossible. That the United States was far too big to ever kill every spirit or ghost, or demon. That even if he should manage to slay each and everyone of them, there would still be the rest of the world left. All he saw was that demons had taken his family, and that he, Dean, would make them pay for that.

And that was how it began.

It was then Dean stopped eating and sleeping. Unless it became absolutely necessary, unless exhaustion got the better of him he ignored his needs, his hunger or tiredness. Usually he was already up before dawn to do research or to prepare. Nightmares were haunting him when he did eventually doze off, and once or twice he thought how after Jessica's death Sam hadn't eaten or slept much either. Back then he'd used all his power of persuasion to make Sam taking care of himself again.

He only ate when hunger became too obnoxious to ignore any longer. And even then food made him sick. He could barely keep a bite down.

Eating and sleeping were a waste of time. Time he had a better use for. Like for the hunt. For keeping promises.

He'd keep his promise to avenge Sam' death. He would keep this promise at least.

-TBC- .


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Five**  
by Steffi

His social worker was nice, he liked her. She didn't do the long speeches, she didn't assure him this was only a temporary thing and his memory would surely return sooner or later. She didn't didn't speak down to him, and that was what Tom liked about her. She was the down-to-earth type who focused on finding practical solutions that would help him getting back into his life, or any life really. No shrink talk, no "But how does that make you feel?" . He got that often enough from the doctors in the hospital. Not to mention from the shrink at the psychological ward who seemed to have taken a great fancy to Tom.

"Yes, but how does that make you feel?" she would ask every time she entered the room. Well, admittedly, that was a very good question. A question he hadn't yet found an answer to. "I've learned to cope with it." possibly nailed it down best. He was beginning to accept that nobody was going to show up to tell him who exactly he was and where he came from. That maybe he'd have to live without any recollection of his past for a good while. He didn't much like that thought.

He'd never forget the moment he saw his face in the mirror for the first time. He'd tried to imagine what he looked like, tried to guess his facial features. The only things he knew were that he was pretty tall and had brown hair – and that he only knew because wisps of hair were constantly blocking his sight. Christ, had his mop ever seen a hairdresser?

Then he was allowed to get up, and he shuffled into the bathroom first thing.

He stared at the floor, the white square tiles, while he walked into the bathroom. When he had positioned himself where he assumed the mirror was hanging at the wall, he first closed his eyes before he looked up. He took a deep breath, oh heck, he desperately hoped he wasn't ugly. What if his face was all scarred? What if his nose looked like a big potato? Could you find yourself repulsive? Of course. Hopefully he wouldn't fall over from shock and break his neck. One's outward appearance was a dangerous business. Like hunting demons.

Tom inhaled sharply and held his breath for a moment, where the hell had that crap come from? Demons? Oh Christ, was he a psycho on top? A case for the loony bin? A lunatic, criminal arsonist? It just kept getting better and better.

He decided to drop the thought and open his eyes instead.

There he was. His reflection that was looking back at him rose an eyebrow as if in doubt. He narrowed his eyes and examined his face, his eyes, his dimples, the brown mop of hair, his features. And the oddest thing was that it didn't feel odd at all.

The moment he glanced into the mirror he remembered what he looked like. He felt like saying "Right, it's you," to his reflection. He didn't feel estranged from his body or his face like he'd feared. It was more like watching a film that you'd forgotten the ending of again after a long time, and the moment you saw it you remembered. "Nice to see you," Tom mumbled and twisted his mouth into a smile.

It was the truth. It was nice to look into the mirror and at least remember something, to regain a little piece of your identity. Unconsciously he straightened a little.

He ran his hand through his hair and wondered whether he should get it cut or not. He parted the strands of hair with his hands and stared at his reflection intently, the effect was amazing. He suddenly looked like a football quarterback, scarily normal. With the hair just hanging into his face he appeared more like a smart ass college geek. Both hairdos seemed familiar to him but which was the right one? He sighed and decided for the messy mop hairdo.

So, his social worker. She was in her early thirties and called Penny. Tom thought the name didn't really suit her, but secretly envied her for _having_ a real name. Her office was situated in a three storey building a few blocks from the hospital. Sean had walked Tom there the first time, making sure Tom wouldn't get lost. The second time, Tom went on his own.

Leaving the hospital was weird, almost scary. Suffering from amnesia and being in a hospital, a place for sick people was bearable. But going out on the street was completely different. He'd never felt so alienated in his life – or at least as far as he could remember which granted, wasn't much. Half of him expected someone to tap on his shoulder and say "There you are, we've been looking for you everywhere!". The other half was hoping for it. Of course, nothing happened.

It was a warm, sunny day and the air conditioner in Penny's office was humming busily. When Tom entered the room, Penny was half buried beneath files and documents, her blonde curly hair sticking out into every direction. Her glasses had slid down her nose and she looked up with a hint of surprise when she detected Tom.

"Is it three already?" she asked. Tom glanced at the wrist watch he'd borrowed from Sean.

"Almost quarter past," he informed Penny with a benign smile.

"Then you're late,"

He shrugged, "Sorry."

"It's okay," she piled some files that had been engrossing her desk up and heaved them onto the floor, then pushed her glasses back up her nose.

"Right..." Penny said, leaning back, "How are you?"

"I'm okay,"

Penny nodded. "And I highly doubt your memory's magically reappeared within the last week?"

"Nope, still suffering from amnesia."

"Good – or well, not good. What I wanted to say, it's about time we sorted some things out."

She reached for a form and a pen from her desk.

"Since you're healthy apart from your amnesia the hospital can't keep you any longer. And since we don't want to abandon you to the world out there without an identity we'll give you one. Hopefully it's only temporarily, but until then you'll need a place to stay, a job and most importantly, a name. So we know how to contact you when we send you to jail..."

He felt the colour vanishing from his face, Penny noticed and winked. "I was kidding. I hope you won't give us a reason to send you to jail..."

"I'll do my best."

He felt dizzy, his head was spinning. A place to stay, and a job? He'd expected this conversation would come, sooner or later, but apparently he'd not been prepared for it.

"Glad to hear that. So, I think we'll find you a name first. You want to keep that name? Tom, I mean?"

"Sure," he replied. "It's as good as any."

"Last name? Any preferences?"

Tom hesitated a moment before he spoke out the first word that'd come to his mind. "Beretta."

"Beretta?"

He nodded. Penny pushed her glasses back up her nose again.

"Like the rifle?"

"Yeah."

"Why the hell would you want to be named for a rifle?" She sounded appalled. Tom shrugged again.

"I don't know. I like the word. Sounds nice."

"Okay, should I be concerned now?"

"We can just pick something else, really, it's just the first word-"

"No, it's okay...", Penny cut in, filling in the form. "Thomas Beretta."

Tom pursed his lips and frowned, watching Penny intently. He didn't really know whether he liked this or not. Of course having a name was great. But he'd much preferred to have his own name back. Another bit of him had just disappeared.

"All right then, Thomas. I've got a job for you. Not here, sadly. Friend of mine told me her brother's looking for someone to work in his record store. I've made some phone calls and I've already found you a small apartment. The first three months the state will pay, then you'll be on your own. We'll provide you with a little money until then so you can buy yourself some clothes and food and all that stuff, until you've settled in your new life." She peered at Tom who'd put up a poker face. "What do you say to that?"

"Don't think I have a choice, do I?"

"You always have a choice."

"I know that saying. It's stupid." He sighed and ran the back of his hand over his eyes. "When should I start working there?"

"Day after tomorrow. I recommend you to go shopping before that. You'll need more than one shirt and a pair of jeans."

The day after tomorrow then. He put the money Penny gave him into his pockets, he didn't have a wallet after all. His chest tightened with fear a little whenever he thought about leaving the hospital. Having to leave it so soon, the only place of safety he knew. What if he couldn't do it? Maybe he was one hell of a loser, and that was the reason why he didn't have a family or friends. It was possible. Anything was.

He went into the first store he spotted and bought some shirts and jeans. Some t-shirts. And an old scruffy leather jacket he spotted in a second hand store and just had to have – he couldn't explain it but it felt like the jacket should, by all rights, be his. His heart was pounding ridiculously loud when he paid for the clothes. Had he bought the right things? What sort of clothes had he worn before his amnesia?Maybe he'd been some sort of eco-freak who always went barefoot and only wore pullovers made of wool from happy sheep. Or maybe he'd been one of those guys who only wore muscle shirts even when it was freezing outside. Or maybe he even had some kind of quirk. Maybe he always wore yellow striped shirts with short sleeves. Maybe the stuff he'd bought just wasn't him at all.

Other things he bought included toiletries, shoes, a duffel bag and a book for the bus ride, and also so he'd something to put on the shelf or closet in his apartment.

The next morning he'd take the bus to the far side of the state to begin a new life he didn't even know if he would like. By now he was sure he wanted to remember who he was. He really wanted to, and he didn't care whether his subconscious was trying to tell him something or not.

Tom didn't go back to his room straight away, but sought out the park that belonged to the hospital instead. In the quiet surrounding him now he could think. Many of the other patients had relatives or friends who joined them for a walk through the park. The sight made Tom's heart ache, and the absence of people who cared about him seemed more obvious than ever. The question rushed through his mind if someone would actually care if he died. Maybe his family was even happy they'd finally gotten rid of him.

He couldn't shake the feeling he'd messed up in his old life. He didn't know what but he was quite positive there had to be something. It was the most logical explanation and also the only one that made sense.

He wondered who this ominous brother was nurse Mary had spoken of. Was that person really his brother or had he been talking about someone else, and everything was just a freaky coincidence? Had he, Tom, been merely at the wrong place at the wrong time? And if he really was that guy's brother, why hadn't the guy showed up here or called the police after Tom's photo had turned up in the newspapers?

Maybe he didn't live here, maybe neither of them did, but then what had they been doing here? Besides burning down houses? And where was their home?

After Tom had packed his stuff he said goodbye to the doctors and Mary and some patients he'd befriended during his time there. Everyone hated to see him go but they all we aware he couldn't stay any longer. Sean had promised to give Tom a ride to the bus station.

That night Tom couldn't find a minute of sleep, too many thoughts were swirling across his mind. Topped by his ever growing fear of the life that was spreading itself before him, the life he didn't know. He wanted to be brave, he tried, but failed miserably. Nice, so there was another thing to add to the list: cowardly, lunatic, criminal arsonist.

The list kept on growing and Tom didn't like the direction it was taking.

-TBC- .


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** The status says "Completed" because all sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Six**  
by Steffi

Dean wished he could have spent the rest of his life on a highway or an interstate. Not in city traffic where there were too many traffic lights and stop signs. Those most annoying traffic signs that forced him to brake and stop the car in the middle of a street. Interstates appealed more to him, because they just ran on and on and you could just keep driving until you needed to stop at a gas station. When he hit the gas pedal and turned the music louder his sorrows and worries disappeared for a while, were swallowed by the noise of the engine and the bass rhythm of the songs. And all he saw was the road sprawling before him, not what was behind him. Not what he'd left behind.

He went away never to return. It couldn't have been any easier.

Music blared through the speakers at a volume that almost made his head vibrate and shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. And yet the volume seemed just right, deafening enough to drown out the quiet voices that had been nagging him for weeks now. _You've lost Sammy, you've lost Sammy_. He turned the music even louder until it gave him a headache and sang along as loud as he could, barking the lyrics.

And when a vehicle turned up on the street that was going slower than the Impala Dean's knuckles turned white from fury as he unconsciously tightened the grip around the steering wheel, and he bit his lip absent-mindly. He didn't want to slow down, he couldn't slow down.

A Greyhound bus appeared in the distance, oh damn, he hated those things. In Dean's mind they had "slow vehicle" written all over them, and their main occupation was blocking roads for people going faster than them.

The Impala was catching up with the bus rapidly, until its bumper almost touched the bumper of the bus. The car slowed down drastically as Dean hit the brakes to adjust the pace of the car to the speed of the bus. He felt like riding on a snail, damn, couldn't the bus go faster? Was it trying to be annoying? Sweat emerged on Dean's forehead, he bit his lip like he always did when he was annoyed or angry and veered onto the other side of the road to overtake the bus without even checking for traffic.

The Impala howled when Dean hit the gas pedal, the rear end of the car swung out as Dean accelerated past the bus. Dean narrowed his eyes, the expression on his face had turned to bitterness, the features appeared to be made of stone. His eyes fixed on the street stubbornly he noticed a truck driving towards him at high speed.

He knew he only had two options – either he slowed down the Impala and got back in the right-hand lane behind the bus, or he tried to overtake the bus before the truck crashed into him. The first option was the one any other person in his right frame of mind would have picked – and it was the one Dean ruled out without even giving it any further thought. He ignored his rational side that was reminding him kindly his plan was madness, and accelerated even more.

He couldn't possibly dawdle behind that bus any longer. The bus was going too slowly. That was out of question.

The truck was approaching rapidly and honked, Dean barely noticed it. His fingers were circled around the wheel like claws, gripping it so tightly the palms of his hands grew sweaty. He didn't notice. On the right side next to him the bus was ambling by slowly, as if in slow motion, the engine of the Impala was complaining about the high speed loudly. The car jerked as it hurtled over the badly tarred road, the truck honked loudly once more. But Dean didn't even hear it. He was strangely calm as if someone was holding his head under water and nothing could get through to him. The truck was growing bigger and bigger as it came nearer, still honking, but Dean just stared on the road before him stubbornly, he was almost ahead of the bus now. The truck slowed down a little, Dean pulled over and set the Impala in front of the bus. The next moment the truck rushed past him.

Dean kept the high speed and only slowed down a little, and had soon left the bus behind completely.

He felt neither fear nor relief.

He drove on till late at night and rented a room in a cheap motel. He'd barely thrown his stuff on one of the beds when suddenly nausea overcame him. Rushing into the bath room, he managed to lift the toilet lid just in time before he threw up. There wasn't much to throw up, really, as he hadn't eaten anything all day long but still he could not help retching over and over again. His stomach cramped violently. Dean's face convulsed in pain. His legs seemed to be made of rubber, and he remained half lying, half sitting on the cold tiles pinned in between the toilet and the bath tub. He felt feeble and weak, cold sweat was assembling on his forehead. The cold tiles made him shiver, but he couldn't force his legs to stand up. So he stayed where he was.

The events of the day passed before his inner eye again. Even though he'd known overtaking the bus was madness, suicide really, he hadn't felt fear. Chances had been against him, and yet he'd done it, without even so much as flinch. That wasn't right, was it? Shouldn't he have felt fear? Or relief when he managed to overtake the bus? Instead he'd felt nothing. He couldn't, couldn't feel anything even when he tried. Sam's death had left a gaping wound that Dean just couldn't make stop bleeding.

Eventually Dean pulled himself up, legs still trembling, and washed his face, carefully avoiding glancing in the mirror. He took some deep breaths and teetered back into the bedroom. He stopped when he realised he'd rented a double room again, a habit he couldn't get rid of. Maybe it was a subconscious thing, he didn't know. Pushing the thought back to his mind, he flung himself on the bed, not bothering to change clothes first.

He hated it when he grew tired, hated it more than anything else. But he hadn't slept the night before and he wouldn't be able to stay awake longer. He hated himself for his own weakness. Closing his eyes, he dozed off almost immediately.

"You sure you got everything?" Sean asked, shooting a doubtful glance at Tom's small luggage. A duffel bag was lying on the ground next to Tom, but its owner only nodded and replied:

"I don't have that much stuff."

"Right. I'd forgotten."

Sean smiled at Tom but Tom didn't feel like smiling or laughing, quite the contrary.

They were standing on the parking lot next to the bus station from which Tom's bus would set out. Tom was desperately holding on to his ticket with his left hand. The noise of starting engines was continuously rolling over them, and was joined by joyful screams from friends who hadn't seen each other in twenty years, the whining of bored children, farewell speeches of family members and the barking of dogs.

"You'll make it." Sean patted Tom's shoulder encouragingly.

"Yeah, I hope so."

"You'll let me know how you're doing, right?"

"You can count on it."

The engine of Sam's bus started, it was time to leave. Tom wondered whether a thank you was appropriate, couldn't really decide for or against it and ended up giving Sean a short hug. He grabbed his bag wordlessly and climbed into the bus. The door closed behind him, and the bus accelerated with a jolt. Tom took a window seat, the bag next to him, and spotted Sean who was waving at him. He waved back at the ever smaller growing figure till the bus took a turn and the orderly disappeared from Tom's line of sight. Tom tilted his head back and – closing his eyes – took some deep breaths.

He thought about the future, the things to come and it left him with an uneasy feeling. He didn't know he'd fallen into a light sleep until terrified screams and talk woke him. He opened his eyes and turned around to find his fellow travellers pressing their faces against the windows, calling something. Two women had averted their eyes as if they were afraid to look. Some people were hammering their fists against the panes. Tom turned his head, following the people's gaze, not understanding the fuss at first. As he looked down he spotted a vehicle next to the bus. A big, black car – a Chevy Impala and Tom wondered how the hell he knew that – was attempting to overtake the bus. But why everybody was so upset Tom couldn't figure out, the sight wasn't very unsettling, surely lots of cars overtook buses on a road? It was then he saw the truck that was approaching the Impala at high speed.

Tom's jaw dropped. Was that driver crazy or something? How could anyone be so stupid? He'd never make it! Tom now too started to hammer against the window pane, was that driver blind? Had he even seen the truck? Christ, that couldn't end well. In his mind Tom already heard the brakes creak and metal crash.

_He was sitting in a big car on the passenger seat. A muscle car. A Chevy Impala. "Slept well?" a voice asked, a cassette tape was being pushed into the radio. Cassette tape? Who the hell was still using cassette tapes? He tried to turn his head to see the driver but couldn't, "We're almost there."_

The relieved murmur of the others pulled him from his line of thoughts, and Tom realised the Impala had actually managed to overtake the bus in time. Tom fell back into his seat and ran his hand through his face, that had been damn close.

Closing his eyes, Tom remembered the scene that had just come to him again. A Chevy Impala, himself on the passenger seat, someone had been with him. It was a memory, Tom just knew. He'd actually been there – but why couldn't he remember who the driver was? His ominous brother perhaps? The voice had been male, but that didn't have to mean anything. Maybe it had been a friend, or his father – or maybe his brother after all? If he had one in the first place.

He tried to play the scene again, hoping that this time he'd see the driver's face. He forced himself to calm down, tried to let his thoughts wander off, but nothing happened. Every time he thought that he was finally there he couldn't get any closer. It was like he just couldn't turn his head to look the driver in the eye. Something was keeping him from doing it. Eventually Tom gave up trying and stared out of the window instead.

The bus drove the whole night through, and once Tom thought he had caught a glimpse of the Impala again. It was parked in front of a motel. But then the night was very dark and black cars tended to look pretty much alike in darkness. Still a weird feeling was creeping up inside him, like a hunch, something he couldn't place. _Stop fretting and get some sleep, moron._ his inner voice advised him and Tom obeyed. After all there was nothing he could do anyway.

He dreamed of demons that night, dreamed he was trying to find and hunt them. Something like that. The driver's voice was there, too, calling him by a name he couldn't make out, and again Tom couldn't see his face. The whole setting felt strangely real which made it even more unsettling. The next morning Tom woke with his shirt soaked in sweat.

Oh Christ, why was he having dreams like that? Demons? Maybe something was wrong with his mind after all. If these things got worse, he'd definitely have to talk to a shrink. These weren't normal dreams at all. In fact, they were insane. Maybe he was a Satanist serial killer?

Oh, that was good. Another neat addition to his list.

Around noon the bus finally stopped in the town that would be Tom's temporary home. Tom hoped it would be temporary at least – the flashback from the day before had cheered him up a little, maybe his memory would return eventually after all. Though if he kept remembering only tiny fragments like that it would take a while until he would have remembered his home and identity. Until then, he'd be Tom Beretta.

-TBC-

-TBC- .


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Seven**  
by Steffi

At first Tom didn't know what he was supposed to do next. For some time he just lingered at the bus station, feeling lost, trying to figure out what would be the next logical step. Oh great, so was the situation asking too much of him already? Seemed like his future was going to be fun. He hugged his bag close to his body, it contained all of his possessions, everything that made him _him_, at least so far. Forcing himself to calm down he followed the other people inside the bus station. It was chilly inside, the fan at the ceiling running on full power filled the room with a dull humming sound.

Tom put down his bag and reached into his pockets, pulling out a crinkled piece of paper which he carefully unfolded. Two addresses were written on it, the one of his temporary home and the one of his temporary workplace. His new life, lovelessly scribbled down and crumpled up.

He scratched the back of his head nervously and hesitantly made his way over to the ticket counter, trying to look as small as possible, which – considering his height – looked quite ridiculous. Placing the paper on the desk for the elderly woman who was selling tickets to read, he pointed to the first address.

"Could you maybe tell me how I can get there?" he asked, desperately trying to sound nice. It seemed to work. Maybe he wasn't an anti-social freak after all? Well, that was an encouraging thought, at least. The woman behind the counter took the piece of paper, frowned and handed it back.

"That's not far from here. Save the cab money, you can get there by foot," she informed Tom, and gave him the directions. Down the street, three blocks, turn right. Tom thanked her and put the paper back into his pockets, then he stepped into the street. He stopped, the duffel bag was hanging from his shoulder now, to wait – even if he didn't know what for. A sign maybe. Anything that'd tell him "You'll do just fine," or maybe "It's not hard at all, you'll see."

Instead the only thing that happened was the noise constantly growing louder. The cars that were passing by braked and honked. The people that were hurrying up and down the street jostled him around. Their voices in shrill screams as they tried to drown out the racket coming from the street. The cries of children, bluster from the apartments above the shops. Tom covered his ears with his hands as the noise began to bury him, and he felt like screaming or crying. Instead he just closed his eyes as tightly as he could and remained silent. His heart was racing, pounding violently. Couldn't the people hear his heartbeat? It felt loud enough. Little pearls of sweat emerged on his forehead, his body shook. Damn, couldn't he ever pull himself together? This was horrible.

He forced himself to open his eyes and uncover his ears. Instantly the noise swamped him. Tears of despair began to burn in his eyes, he just couldn't do it, he'd never be able to handle this. He wished himself back into the safety of the hospital, maybe there was a way to go back there? Maybe if he made them understand he couldn't do this, all on his own, maybe they'd help, maybe they'd allow him to stay a little longer...

The moment Tom thought the idea through he knew that was next to impossible. He wasn't suffering from any disease, he wasn't hurt – they couldn't help him any more. He was on his own and he would have to learn to manage these things, his new life. He felt like he wouldn't ever be able to do that, not in a hundred years, what if he failed? It scared him, pushed him till he was on the verge of a panic attack.

All he wanted to do was to hide somewhere. He wanted to lock himself somewhere and pull the blanket over his head and pretend things would turn out just fine. But to do that, he needed to find his apartment. With the prospect of some well-deserved loneliness he made for the direction the lady had pointed him in, soon he was almost running.

It didn't take long until he'd left the bus station behind and reached the building where he was going to be living. He stopped and tried to catch his breath, bent over with hands on his knees. For a moment he thought his lungs were going to explode, but soon enough his breathing had settled again and Tom rang the doorbell. The name of his landlady had been on the piece of paper. Nothing happened. Tom rang again, then the door made a buzzing sound and Tom was allowed in. He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and found himself in an old, dark hallway that smelled like bleach. One of the doors leading to the apartments was ajar. "Come in!" he heard a woman voice call. Tom did as he was told, and closed the door once he was in. The apartment fulfilled his expectations, it had clearly seen better times but everything was in neat order, from the old photographs on the shelves to the rag dolls that were looking at Tom from the couch. From the kitchen a woman now entered the room. Tom reckoned her to be in her forties. From her wrinkled face – which was framed by a mop of raven and badly done permanent waves of hair – friendly eyes set their gaze on Tom. She was wearing an old pair of jeans and a shirt that had probably been very trendy in the eighties. All in all, she seemed like an agreeable person.

"I'm Susan." she said, offering her hand to Tom, "You must be Tom."

He nodded, "Nice to meet you."

She laughed and rested her hands on her hips. "I say we take a look at your new place then, eh?" When she noticed the rather small size of Tom's luggage she frowned. "Is that everything?"

"Yeah," Tom replied, shrugging. Susan pursed her lips and shot Tom a pondering glance, then she disappeared in what Tom guessed was her bedroom, and returned with a pillow and a blanket. "You should buy your own stuff tomorrow or maybe the day after, but for now you can borrow this."

"Thanks," Tom felt his face going the colour of a tomato. Why hadn't he thought of that?

The apartment – a small room with a kitchen and bathroom connected to it - was on the third floor, also known as the top floor. The wall paper looked old, some parts were yellowed, but it didn't bother Tom. The windows looked out onto the street, and its red curtains seemed to date back to around the same time as the wall paper. And the carpet.

Tom did exactly what he had planned. Once Susan left he climbed onto the bed in his new strange room and buried himself underneath the blanket. He wondered what his room at home looked like. If only he could have remembered. The noises of street life were soaring up to him in his apartment, a police horn howled, in the apartment next to his he could hear laughter. And apparently the TV was on. It smelled peculiar, Tom thought. Everything here was peculiar. And all he wanted was to find a, no, _his_ home. His real home.

He didn't get any sleep that night. Lying on his back, he stared at the ceiling, waiting for the hours to pass. Waiting for dawn. Thoughts were spinning in his head and didn't allow him to fall asleep. When it was finally time to get up he rose with a feeling of being strangely tired and refreshed at the same time. He trudged into the bathroom, took a shower and brushed his teeth with the new tooth brush he'd bought the day before, yellow with red stripes – combed his hair or tried to at least, dressed and took a deep breath. The evening before Susan had explained to him how to get to his new work place at the record store. It was now or never. His new life was about to begin.

He locked the door – with his keys, hell, how weird and yet familiar that felt – and went down the stairs. He stepped out into the street and this time the noise seemed less overwhelming. Maybe because he'd had all night to get used to it from his apartment. He still didn't like it, but it seemed to be bearable now, at least.

He bought himself a cup of coffee. As he ambled by the little shops he found that today, on second view, the town seemed not that bad after all. He crossed three roads, walked across a park and finally found himself standing in front of the record store Penny had told him about. He threw the empty cup into a trash can, took a deep breath and entered.

The bell above the door jingled as Tom pushed the door open, but was drowned out by the loud rock music that was blaring from the speakers. Behind the counter a man in his thirties appeared. A cigarette was sticking out of his mouth and he put a pile of CDs on the desk which he started to sort carefully before he even turned to speak to Tom.

"How can I help you?"

"Well..." Tom began, gathering his last bit of self esteem, "I'm Tom. I was sent here for work..."

The man took the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out in an ash tray, "Oh right. The guy with amnesia, right?"

Tom shrugged, "I guess that's me."

"I'm Chris." The man introduced himself. "I'm the owner. You like rock music?"

Tom strolled over to the counter and sighed, "No idea."

"We'll find out in time then, I guess."

The first thing Tom found out was that he shared his shifts with two other temp workers. Both seemed to be his age. June had long, red hair and wore definitely too much eyeliner. She liked to talk about the meaning of life and the origin of the universe for hours if you let her. Mikey was a gangly guy who appeared to be two or three years younger than Tom. Mikey never talked much, and he was terribly and secretly in love with June. At least Tom was fairly sure Mikey was.

Chris himself had apparently decided at the age of seventeen to never grow any older. He loved to throw around witty remarks that only he found witty or funny, and somehow Tom liked that, it seemed familiar to him. Chris tended to be a little out of it and Tom couldn't shake the feeling that Chris liked to smoke weed after work. His relationship with his workers was a friendly one, though he would never let them forget he was their employer. Every now and then Chris would receive visits from various people he'd call his "friends". They would lock themselves in the back office, and proclaim that they were not to be disturbed. Tom, June and Mikey of course knew clandestine dealings were going on there, but that was none of their business – and they didn't want to lose their jobs. So they remained silent and ignored what was going on.

Tom was informed on his first day that it was custom to have a few drinks together after hours. He was invited to come along and he agreed, his apartment wasn't that beautiful after all - it probably didn't matter where he spent his free time. That evening Tom found out Mikey had a wicked sense of humour, and that June actually had some interesting stories to tell. For the first time in a long time he laughed, and didn't think of what was possibly lying ahead. When he returned home that night – it was weird to call the apartment 'home' – he felt a little, just a little bit less lost than he'd felt only this morning.

A new feeling rose within him, and the thought rushed through his mind that maybe, just maybe, he would be able to handle these things after all, that maybe the things lying ahead weren't that bad, and that maybe his future was holding more for him than he'd expected.

TBC .


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Eight**  
by Steffi

He was dripping everywhere. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Dean hadn't meant to ruin the carpet with his blood and he was really sorry for it, too, but he'd had to go _somewhere_ and after all he'd paid good money for the room. Or actually, the credit card company had paid good money for the room. Anyway, where else was he supposed to go?

The damn poltergeist had torn half the house down before Dean had finally been able to expel it. A cupboard with dishes had crashed down on him, and judging from the pain, he had sprained his right ankle. Of course the sprained ankle hadn't stopped him from driving all the way back to the motel. He'd clenched his teeth and ignored the pain. More than that, the pain hadn't even bothered him. He was feeling something for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, even if it was only pain. He just didn't particularly care for the blood.

Dean's hands and arms had suffered some ugly cuts when Dean had tried to protect his head from the dishes shattering over him. Now he was dripping on his car, the parking lot and his bedroom, fuck, that was just what he needed, wasn't it? Dean slammed the door shut behind him, scanned the room quickly (training lessons and countless reproaches by John had turned this procedure into a reflex) and limped to the bathroom. On the sink his bag with plasters, disinfectants and bandages was waiting for him. Dean cleaned his wounds scantly and put band-aids with comic characters on them, it would have to do. As he rolled up his sleeves he found not yet fully healed cuts and bruises from the last time Dean had encountered a spirit that hadn't been too keen on being sent back to Hell.

These days, his body seemed to be constantly hurt and aching. He couldn't sit up, or lie down or do anything without feeling the sting of pain or a strain somewhere. Taking a shower took him ages. Even in his sleep he sometimes felt a dim pain somewhere. It was like falling apart bit by bit.

Compared to – Dean couldn't bring himself to think the words "when Sam was still alive" – _back then_, he was barely scrambling out alive of jobs these days. Just the other day he'd missed a shot that a year ago he would have hit blindfolded. Four months ago he wouldn't have forgotten the words of an incantation while he was halfway through it. He was slowing down, and often he'd find himself muttering apologies to Sam for that before he went to bed to get a bit of sleep until the next hunt.

Since he'd lost Sam, he'd fought and killed about forty demons. Since he never took a day off, and didn't spent his nights at bars or with women any more, this was about as much as he could do within four months. He had the distinct feeling it should have been more. How was he supposed to kill every evil thing if forty of those creatures took him four months?

He'd stopped eating, and he didn't even notice. His days were filled with research and preparations and hunts, with fulfilling the promise he'd made. His other life now seemed like someone else's, like a childhood dream from the past.

Dean reached for a towel and glanced at the mirror, and flinched. The reflection looked different from what he remembered, like a stranger's face. And yet it was him. They were undoubtedly his eyes staring back at him, even if they were deeply shadowed these days. His cheekbones were sticking out slightly, as well as his chin. The words that came to his mind first were 'haggard' and 'sunken'. His skin had adopted the color of the ivory. It occurred to Dean that he did look like a creature of the night, with the pale skin and the dark, big eyes. That gaunt face probably would have scared ghosts away had they taken the time to have a closer look at him. Something that didn't belong to daylight, and with other people.

Hesitantly he approached the mirror again, and touched his reflection carefully with the fingers of his right hand. For a moment he stared at his own face intensely, and the thought rushed through his mind how it had come this far, then he pulled away hastily. He soaked the towel in water before he limped back to the bedroom. He grabbed the remote control and sat down on the bed so he could rest his foot. He wrapped the cool, wet cloth around his ankle carefully. Dean breathed in sharply as a short flash of pain pierced through his body, then he leant back and switched the TV on.

He hoped his foot would be better by morning. At least well enough for him to leave. His job here was done, and he needed to find himself something to hunt. He wasn't just going to sit here and waste time because his body was being bitchy.

_Ice Age_ was on. Dean remembered that one time when Sam and he had decided to watch it, and how Sam had almost peed himself with laughter. He'd laughed so hard he'd held his belly, and wiped tears from his eyes while Dean had just watched him in amazement. He would have never thought that Sam, Mister Broody, would laugh himself silly over something like _Ice Age_ like an eight year-old. The memories made Dean smile but were almost instantly accompanied with pain, so he changed the channel. He zapped into some cheap action movie that he watched for the exploding cars before he eventually dozed off.

Dean dreamed about Sam that night, which hadn't happened in a while. The dream was vivid, and intense, and when Dean woke from it his clothes damped with sweat and Sam's voice "It's all your fault" ringing in his ears it took him a moment before he realised none of it had been real. When he fell back to sleep he dreamed again. Dreamed that Sam was still alive. They were in a diner, possibly having breakfast, and Sam told him that everything had only been a joke. The fire a fraud, his death a fake. Sam patted Dean on the shoulder, then he apologised – and Dean woke from the dream, his heart racing.

How he wished that the dream was reality, and that what he took for reality was the dream.

Dean straightened, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried putting weight on his foot –hoping that it would support it. Dean was content to find that the pain had disappeared almost completely, and that he would be would be able to drive. It still hurt of course, but it was bearable, and Dean wasn't asking for more than that. He fetched the bag that he'd carelessly thrown on the floor and took out a sandwich he'd bought the day before. Dean unwrapped it slowly and ate it half-heartedly, his stomach churning with every bite. Dean wasn't actually hungry, hadn't been in a while. It took about thirty minutes for him to finish the sandwich, and he felt sick after. For a couple of minutes he thought he was going to vomit, but he was able to keep the food down in the end.

He remained sitting down, his head resting in his hands, waiting for the nausea to pass. The thought crossed his mind that he would have loved to talk to his Dad. To tell him what he was up to, how much he tried to make up for his failure, even though he wasn't doing as well as he'd hoped. Maybe just leave him a message on his cell phone, "Hi Dad. Still haven't killed all demons. I miss Sam."

It wouldn't have been the first time. He'd left messages on his father's cell phone before, to keep his Dad updated. Dean had never admitted that to Sam, though. Sammy would have only pointed out that Dean was pathetic, always longing for that reassuring pat on the head by his father. Either way, there was no way Dean could even do as much as leaving a simple message on his father's mailbox. It might have given away Dean's position. Who knew what sort of contacts his Dad had, after all. Dad was never going to find him. Never.

John had never hit his sons, not a once. But by now, Dean was beginning to imagine scenarios where his father found him, looked at his failure of a son and grew furious, so furious he'd start to beat the crap out of Dean.

His head told Dean that it was nonsense – Dad would have never hurt him. But his heart told him different. Maybe because, if he couldn't face himself in the mirror any more, how could he expect his Dad to? How could he ask of his Dad not to hate him? It was too much to ask for, and so Dean grew more afraid of his father day by day, scared he would eventually track him.

Articles on the internet gave Dean some hints and clues he found interesting, local mysterious deaths and sightings. He noted them down and rubbed his temple with his hand, jerking a little when a bolt of pain shot through his body – he'd forgotten he'd hurt his hand the day before.

"Didn't I tell you to take care of yourself?"

"No, you didn't." Dean replied tonelessly, not even looking up. He'd grown so used to suddenly hearing Sam's voice everywhere that he'd stopped flinching and wondering a long time ago. He knew he was imagining it, but he could have cared less. Sam was the only person he still talked to every now and then.

"I remember it vividly." Sam informed his brother, and Dean twisted his lips to a sad smile.

"Well, I don't. Besides, I am taking care of myself. I just ate a sandwich. Happy now?"

"Very." A sigh. "What about your foot?"

"As good as new."

Sam begged to differ, "You should rest it another day, and give yourself a break."

"I don't need a break."

"No?" Sarcasm had been added to Sam's voice. "I think you do."

"Good for you." Dean snarled. Sometimes Sammy could be such a pain in the ass.

"Your injuries from last week aren't fully healed yet either, are they?" Sammy asked, ignoring Dean's comment.

"Almost."

"Ever considered seeing a doctor?"

"Because of some scratches?" Dean bristled, "Fucking waste of time." Oh great, now he was having arguments with his dead brother. Even better, the voice of his dead brother. Sam sounded hurt when he said:

"You know you're killing yourself, right?"

For a moment perfect silence cloaked the room, before Dean replied very quietly: "As if anybody cared."

The fragility of his voice gave him a scare.

"You know I never wanted this, right?" Sam continued. _Sammy, Sammy._ "I never wanted you to go and kill yourself."

"Maybe I want to..." Dean answered defiantly. Then he rose abruptly and started to pack his stuff. But if he'd thought that would make Sam stop, he was wrong.

"You've got to stop this, Dean! You hear me?" His voice now had a demanding tone that sounded quite like their father. "Dean, you've got to stop this! It's going to kill you, sooner rather than later!"

"It was always going to, anyway." Dean said calmly but not without bitterness, "Or did you actually think I ever counted on growing old? Did you think I ever believed I would grow old and die peacefully in my bed one day? That I would live to retire and play bingo every Tuesday night? Sam, I'm lucky if I live to celebrate the day I turn forty."

"Dean..." Sam tried again, "That's why you got to stop. Please."

Dean zipped the bag up, and shook his head slightly. "I can't stop, Sam. I just can't."

He didn't wait for Sam's reply, but shouldered his bag, switched the lights off, locked the door and limped over to the Impala.

TBC .


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Nine**  
by Steffi

After Tom had been working at the record store for some weeks he'd learned the following:

One: The meet up in the bar after work was a routine that happened on a daily basis. Depending on who'd worked shifts that day the cast of the meet-up altered. Sometimes it would only be Mikey and him, sometimes Lucy would join them. The only one who'd always be there, even if he hadn't worked shifts that day, was Tom. He would spend as little time as possible at his apartment, maybe because it still wouldn't feel like his apartment. He'd bought a cheap television, some more books, his own pillows and blankets, even towels, but it still seemed odd to him. It felt more like a temporary stay in a hotel, not like home. He was a visitor who'd stopped by for a short time and was always ready to move on. Had he always had such trouble settling down? Or was that new? Tom couldn't say.

Two: Whenever AC/DC were blaring from the speakers Tom would get goosebumps all over, as though someone's fingernails were scraping down a blackboard. He couldn't for the life of him understand why people would listen to that noise voluntarily, unless they were demented or mad. Or deaf.

So the fact that he seemed to know all the words to Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Motörhead by heart was a little freaky, especially since he couldn't remember ever hearing the songs before. Sometimes he'd catch himself humming or even quietly singing along to certain songs. One day, Chris had put on "Some Kind of Monster" and Tom had spontaneously burst into laughter, but when June asked him what was so funny Tom couldn't remember why he'd laughed. Two days later Tom was sorting records when he stumbled across various albums by Blue Oyster Cult, and suddenly that voice from his dream was back, calling his name. Images of the black Chevy Impala flared up, and the records Tom had been holding in his hands fell to the ground with a thud. His fingers reached towards the shelves for support because his legs shook violently and the unknown voice in his head yelled "You're such a geek."

Three: He began getting to know himself. Not the self he'd been – _before –_ but the self he was now. Tom assumed it was mostly Mikey's and June's fault – both eccentrics who knew exactly what they were and where in life they stood. They urged Tom to consider things, and find out what he liked and what he didn't. In his endless discussions with June the question she asked most frequently was definitely "What do _you_ think about it?" So Tom thought, and thought again, considered, pondered and wondered until he could offer an answer. It was a learning process, a learning process about that mystical person that stared back at Tom with puppy eyes when Tom glanced into the mirror every morning.

He'd found out he liked books, and he could spend hours in the nearby park just reading. He also seemed to have a weakness for TV shows like Judging Amy, Ally McBeal and Law & Order. June in particular made fun of him for that, which amused Tom more than it bothered him, because June had, at one point, admitted to him that she was rather fond of Gilmore Girls. June had been drunk that evening, and Tom still mocked her for it.

All things considered, maybe there was a perfectly normal explanation for the things on the List Of Things That Were Weird About Him after all. He seemed rather average, didn't he? Not creepy or insane. Maybe he wasn't even an arsonist? It seemed unlikely, but not impossible. Maybe he _was_ normal, Tom thought. Perfectly ordinary, like everyone else.

A couple of weeks had passed when one evening, June brought her friend Alice to the bar. Alice was a college girl, or at least she seemed like one. She had that "hungry for knowledge" air about her and she was dressed with no sense of style whatsoever, as far as Tom could tell. Her brown hair was cut short, and it framed a quite ordinary face that was neither pretty nor ugly. Alice wasn't exactly tall, and Tom's first thought was that she ought to eat a little more, maybe she'd grow – in every direction.

"This is Alice." June said, glancing at her friends expectantly.

"From Wonderland?" Chris said, and shrugged when June glared at him furiously. June took a seat and Alice sat down next to her, both ignoring Chris' comment. Tom would have liked to say something but suddenly his throat seemed to have dried out, so he just looked at the unknown girl from his corner seat through his bottle of beer. Soon a discussion had emerged, which didn't surprise Tom at all, not when June was there – but he didn't actually listen. Although he definitely perceived voices, he didn't pay attention to the words and drifted into his own world of thoughts.

Bottles were funny. They were. How did they make them? How could it be that each and every bottle looked the same? It was fascinating. Brown bottles, green bottles, bottles of no color...

"Hm...", Tom said, then noticing it had grown rather quiet at the table, and that everyone was looking at him. "What?" he asked. He felt cheeks flushing, oh, perfect. He was like a chameleon with the way he constantly changed color.

"What was that?" June asked, her eyebrows twisted into a skeptical frown. Tom quickly shook his head, "Oh, nothing." _Just my thoughts about the crafting of bottles. Weirdo._ June nodded as if her expectations had fulfilled themselves, and returned to her discussion about the pollution of the Earth, or something else that made her sound like she had an opinion of her own. Tom granted her a half-hearted smile, and returned to his bottle. He tried to rip off the label, but he couldn't even manage that.

At that moment, he was quite certain he was the geekiest and most boring person in the world – well, maybe not the world, but the US at least. Definitely. He'd probably been so geeky before the accident his family had abandoned him. Like Steve Urkel's family. Tom wouldn't have blamed them. Also, he wasn't even a real arsonist, maybe he'd simply set the house on fire by accident. Now, there was a solid and likely theory.

He spent the rest of the evening hidden behind his bottle, which – considering his height – didn't work out too well. June tried to draw him into a conversation a couple of times, but all of Tom's replies were rather monosyllabic so eventually June just gave up. He left the bar early, claiming he wasn't feeling well, and decided to drop by the park.

Somewhere on the other side of town a church bell struck 11 O'clock as he entered the park. In the dark everything was different from how it had looked in daylight, spooky and scary, almost haunted. The trees stood out against the sky like black creatures, and as the wind stroked their leaves and branches the trees bowed slightly, as if they were talking to each other. The wind was their whispers as they exchanged secrets and rumours of days long lost. Whispered about Tom. He listened but couldn't make out the words.

He should have been nervous, all alone out here in the dark, but he wasn't. The town had fallen asleep already, streets empty, shops closed, the time of spirits and demons had begun. Tom smiled when the thought rushed through his mind – hell, he was one big Weirdo. With capital "W". He ambled by trees and bushes to finally sit down on one of the benches, where he stretched his legs. Out here, in the loneliness of the night he felt strangely safe and comfortable. Almost as if he'd grown up in the dark, and learned to fear the day.

The air was mild and silky, and wrapped Tom up like a cloak made of the finest fabric. The leaves of the trees rustled in the breeze, and as Tom closed his eyes for a moment he felt like he was at sea, and the leaves were the waves. The silence was like medicine, drowning out the deafening noises from the bar and the thoughts that kept spinning in Tom's head. He tried to clear his mind and relax.

Out here, everything fell into place, everything made sense. For a little while the Earth stood still, nothing moved, and all the questions did not clamor for their answers. His troubles disappeared into the distance until they seemed insignificant. This was peace. This was heaven.

Then something rustled in the bushes next to the bench.

Instantly Tom's right hand rushed into the bag he'd placed by his side and with disappointment encountered only emptiness. Tom frowned – what the hell was he looking for? _Weapons_ was the word coming to his mind first, naturally or not so naturally at all. Another rustle made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, every muscle in his body tensed in preparation, as if he'd been conditioned to do so – like Pavlov's dog.

Tom jumped to his feet at the same moment that a man with a knife leaped forward from the bushes. Before the attacker knew what was happening to him, Tom had kicked the knife out of his hand. It fell to the ground, the blade shining in the moonlight. Tom grabbed the man's arm, and positioned himself so his back was facing the other man, bent forward and pulled the attacker over his shoulder. The man landed on the ground hard and a groan escaped him. There he remained there, coughing.

Tom stood over the man and tried to understand what had just happened. Everything had been over so fast. One moment he'd been sitting on that bench musing the meaning of life, and the next he – with help of martial arts skills that he didn't even know he possessed – had overpowered a criminal as if he'd done it a thousand times before. The man on the ground coughed once more but he didn't stir. Perhaps he thought Tom was a serial killer and was now waiting for his throat to be cut.

Tom, however, had no intention of cutting anyone's throat. Instead he stared at the figure on the ground for a few moments more – and then bolted. The trees, bushes, then the street, buildings, the closed shops rushed by and he didn't even notice it. He leaped up the staircase, fumbled for his keys and dropped them, picked them up, unlocked the door, entered, locked the door and stopped in the bathroom where he splashed cold water into his face. His body shivered violently, and a voice that wasn't the one from his flashbacks and dreams said "_Take the element of surprise from them."_ The voice was more husky, deeper, older somehow and he couldn't say why but Tom was fairly certain it was his father's voice. Tom's heartbeat quickened, "I have a father," he thought and then "Why isn't he looking for me?"

Tom stumbled over to his bed, sat down, pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around them. He shivered with the cold but he couldn't bring himself to get up and close the window. His teeth chattered, he tried to calm himself down, breathe in, breathe out. It wouldn't work. Who the hell was he? The more he learned about himself, the more he wished he wouldn't.

Conclusion: he knew martial arts and had overpowered a criminal like it was a piece of cake. Someone, possibly has father, had taught him how, so that "they" didn't have the element of surprise. Who the hell were "they"? People? Animals? Both?

He hated hard rock music yet knew the lyrics to more hard rock songs than he knew existed. He jerked every time he saw someone wearing a Metallica shirt. He was possibly insane. He had probably burned down a house. His family wouldn't see him. He didn't have any papers, ID cards, or even his name stitched to his pants.

Did that make any sense at all? Preferably a sense that didn't turn him into a lunatic criminal?

Tom couldn't think of one.

"Hey." June said, placing herself in front of the counter desk.

"Hey." Tom replied, not looking up. He scratched the back of his head while chewing on his pen, trying to figure out which CDs he would have to order for the store.

"You left early yesterday."

June tapped her fingers on the desk.

"Didn't feel well. Headache."

Tom ran the back of his hand over his eyes. Yesterday. And he'd tried so hard to erase that evening from his memory.

"Pity," June continued, and then added, "Alice asked me about you," when there still was no reaction from Tom. Tom stiffened a bit, and finally he looked up.

"She did what?"

"Asked about you." June waited a moment and sighed when it became obvious Tom still had no clue what she was on about. "You know, she wanted to know whether you have a girlfriend, and where you're from."

"Let me know if you find out," Tom mumbled.

"Very funny." June paused before she said: "I told her you've got this amnesia thing. She still seems to think you're cute."

"But..." Tom began, but June didn't let him finish:

"Oh, for the love of God, Tom, can you or will you not understand me? Don't be so thick. She's interested in you. She thinks you're cute. She wants to see you again."

The pen fell from Tom's lips and he had an expression on is face as if June had just told him that ghosts actually existed.

"She wants to see me again?"

"Hell yes, are you a parrot? Oh, don't look so shocked Tom. Do you want to see her again?"

"Uhm..." Tom said, "You think that's such a good idea? I mean, with my... situation?"

"She's determined, it all depends on you." June reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that she placed on the desk. "Here's her number. If you like her, give her a call. She's the sweetest girl. And even if it doesn't work out, you could still be friends. I mean, everyone needs friends, especially you."

She patted Tom's hand encouragingly, and went to the storage room. Tom picked up the piece of paper and studied it with a frown. In his head a mini movie with all kinds of scenarios was playing over and over again. From marriage to broken heart to him chopping Alice's head off everything seemed to be there. Maybe it would be wiser not to call her. She wouldn't like him anyway, especially not once she learned about his potential past.

But then, it was just a _potential_ past, wasn't it? She wouldn't have to know, after all, this here was a new life, a new chance. If he wanted, he could leave his old life behind, just like that, with a snap. What did he have to lose after all?

He picked up the phone and dialed her number.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Ten**  
by Steffi

He was running out of money and he'd noticed it too late. He would be able to afford one last night in this motel before it'd be back to sleeping in the back seat of the Impala. He would have to spend what was left of his money on the little food he needed these days. Not that he cared much for where he slept at night anyway. Bed or back seat, it was all the same to him.

He'd forgotten to apply for a new credit card and that had never happened to him before. He'd sent off another application yesterday, but it would take some time before he'd receive the credit card, and until then, he'd be more or less broke. He'd been short on money before, but not like this. And back then he'd made some extra money hustling, but these days he was good at neither poker nor pool, and lost more games than he won. Focusing seemed an impossible thing to do, and his fingers were trembling so much he constantly missed the target.

Lady Luck had turned her back on him, and for some reason that filled Dean with satisfaction. Sometimes he imagined Lady Luck smiling at him, while he won one round of poker after another, and then she whispered _'Even if your brother's dead you're still good at poker, so how dare you complain?'_ and then he woke up from his daydream soaked in sweat. No, things were better and fairer this way. Not that he deserved fair.

He'd spread his weapons across the table to clean and polish them. It was the only thing he still did with his old carefulness. In fact, he'd developed a real complex as far as cleaning his guns and rifles and knives was concerned. Never before had he taken his weapons apart, cleaned and put them together again this often. It was soothing. The voices grew quieter.

His father came to his mind as Dean cleaned the barrel of his shotgun. Where was he? Was he okay? Fragments of childhood memories burst into his consciousness; his father sitting on his bed, staring vacantly out of the window. That had been the day after Mom's death, and Dean didn't like to remember that day, or any of the other days that came after. It had taken a while before Dad had been able to look after his sons again, and now Sam was dead and Dean couldn't help but wonder what that had done or was still doing or would do to his father. Maybe this had pushed Dad over the edge. Maybe this time he wouldn't be fine again. At night Dean often saw his father in his dreams, being drunk in a motel room or at a bar, his hair completely grey, eyes deeply shadowed. And then the voice would jeer: _Look what you've done. _

It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. Dean could still remember his father from before, well not much actually but – there were emotions, sentiments. He was being lifted up and cradled in his Dad's arms and he felt safe. He was catching a baseball and he heard his father's voice say "Well done, Dean!". Dad tucked him in at night and kissed him on the forehead. Every single memory from _before_ was filled up with love and safety and comfort. The warmth was so strong it had lingered on, hung on to Dean all through the bitter years later, and no, it wasn't fair that once he'd had all this love and comfort and then it had been ripped from him and replaced with cold. But then, maybe he'd never deserved it in the first place because it was destined and the Gods or Hell or Fate –had known he'd lose Sammy. He'd lost more than Sammy, he'd lost his father for good, too. They would never be a family again, and he – Dean Winchester of all people – was to blame. Oh, the irony.

If only he could have called his father to check if he was still using his cell phone – one sign that Dad was still alive, at least, but Dean couldn't bring himself to do it. Dad could have answered it. Dean couldn't risk that.

He began to carefully put the weapons back into his duffle bag. The cool metal slid through his palms soothingly. Rifles and pistols and guns had become his friends, the only ones he had. Dean still hadn't shed a single tear since that fateful day. At first he'd been too numb to even feel the loss and pain, and now the pain had numbed him again. He tried to ignore it and knew that the voices telling him that Sam was dead because of him came from somewhere _there_, deep within.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried crying at first. He owed that to Sammy, didn't he? But he couldn't. Then as time went by he noticed the pain growing bigger, stretching through his body, and sometimes he held his breath because he thought his body was going to burst open from it at any second. It astonished him how much agony a body could endure. And Dean grew afraid that if he cried now he'd just break into tiny little pieces, fragments of his grieving self all over the floor, and he'd never be able to be put himself back together again. He was afraid he might drown in his own tears, and so he reinforced the wall he'd built around himself, and he piled up the tears and forbid himself to cry. Tears wouldn't bring Sam back, tears wouldn't help him keep his promise. So he became cold and indifferent, except for the pain that was so big it pierced through the numbness with a constant ache.

Dean rested his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. He had a headache again. The violent throbbing in his forehead had quickly become his faithful companion. Hardly a day passed by when Dean wouldn't swallow one or two or more painkillers to make the headache at least bearable. Sometimes he even took them when he didn't have a headache, just to be sure.

His figure resembled that of an old man these days, the way he walked with slouched shoulders, like someone who couldn't carry his burden any longer. He dragged himself from place to place, often limping, often stumbling. His body was aching and hurting and expressed what Dean's mind couldn't.

Reaching for the last pistol, Dean weighed the small token in his hands and frowned. He didn't put it in the bag. To the hunter's eyes she was a beauty; silver, light and easily to handle. The metal glistened in the pale lamp light as his bony fingers closed around it. They hadn't always been this bony, like a skeleton's hand, Dean remembered. He narrowed his eyes a little to survey the pistol more closely and suddenly it struck him. Suddenly he realised the answer to all his problems lay here in his hand, and had been doing so for some while.

The past months he hadn't even once considered it. He'd carried on like a loyal soldier, like a machine that just kept going.

But now he felt himself breaking under the weight. He felt drained, frail, tied. There wasn't anything left to give. He was completely empty. He didn't kill half as many demons as he'd aspired to. His agility along with his stamina and marksmanship were gone. The tricks that had saved him from dangerous situations before wouldn't work any more. Each hunt was more exhausting than the last and each fight harder to win than than the one before. The fact that he was still alive and breathing was mere luck, and his body was dotted with bruises, cuts and scratches only too willing to testify.

His grip around the pistol tightened, and slowly he lifted it until the barrel was pointed at his temple. As if the hand had a will of its own, because Dean wasn't doing it, not really. It felt like someone was pulling his hand up but there was no one. Kind of like back then when his feet had carried him to the Impala, and to the ruins of the house where Sam had died. Dean's index finger closed around the trigger. The cool metal lay against his skin, calming him. The noises grew quieter, the chaos in his mind arranged itself a little bit and he could see clearer.

He tried to think of a reason to live on but not one would come to his mind. Daylight scared him, because it lit up his sins for all to see and sometimes he wondered why people on the street didn't just beat the crap out of him, they _had_ to know, didn't they? And there was nowhere to hide besides in the shadows and the dark of the night. His own shadow grew fainter, he was a broken toy ready to be tossed away.

Yes, he was broken. The colours were flaking, his clothes were torn. He was ready to be thrown out. There was no more room for someone like him on earth, he was about to be replaced. Broken toys were thrown away, and since Dean had no one to do that for him he would have to do it himself.

The Moor had done his duty.

The prospect of peace was so tempting Dean thought he couldn't bear it. He drew the trigger a little more, there was a click. Dean felt anticipation together with numbness. It was strange and it occurred to him that feeling this way shouldn't even be possible. But it didn't matter. Dean was calm.

Dean didn't believe in Heaven, or a happy life after death, in reunion with lost family members or Elvis Presley. Hell was the dimension exclusively reserved for demons. Lost souls and angry spirits didn't go to hell when they were released, they went nowhere. They just dissolved, as would he when he died. No existence as an angel, no cloud, no harp, he'd just be gone and that was exactly what he wanted. To disappear and leave nothing behind.

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. _Come on you coward_, the voice said, _or can't you even do this the right way?_

His hand was shaking. The muscles in his index finger tensed. Dean straightened a bit. This was it. Finally.

_So, you're just gonna bolt, is that it?_ another voice that sounded quite like his Dad's even though it was a bit different added, _Sam is dead because of you, and you're going to run? Take the easy way out? Do you think you deserve the easy way? Don't you at least owe him to fulfil your promise while you still can? Death is too good for you, Dean._

The pistol sank back to the bed, Dean hardly noticed. His eyes still closed he nodded silently to himself, the voice was right. He had to carry on. He couldn't just ignore the punishment that had been bestowed upon him.

His fingers were still tightly closed around the pistol. He held onto it desperately, because there was nothing else to hang onto. Everything that he was was lying in his hand in the shape of a gun, the hunter, the demon slayer. The weapon was him, the hunter, because the time of the brother and son had passed.

Dean flung himself backwards onto the bed, the headache had returned and was apparently attempting to drive him mad with its constant throbbing. The blanket smelled of cheap fabric softener. Outside, cars and trucks rushed by at irregular intervals. When at last dusk was beginning to spread its twilight cloak over this part of the States, Dean had not had a minute of sleep.

He threw his bag into the trunk and froze when his gaze reached Sam's bag that was still lying in the trunk. Dean hadn't found the strength to move it yet or even touch it. A bolt of sheer panic rushed through Dean's body, then he hastily, almost angrily, slammed the trunk shut. He got into the Impala where he remained motionless behind the wheel for a couple of minutes. His arms were weak and numb, and he barely managed to place them on the steering wheel. He was lacking strength and possibly also will.

This was it then. No excuses, no evading, no exit.

At last he started the engine and hit the road. He needed money, and he knew someone who'd be willing to provide him with fake plates, credit cards, papers and anything else you could fake. ID cards Dean could fake himself, there was no difficult science behind it. He smiled, confident in the knowledge that he could be whoever he wanted to be, a police officer, a lawyer, even an astronaut. Dean bit his lip as he remembered how Dad had taught him that over and over again. How Dean had passed the knowledge on to Sammy.

Machines on the other hand were less easily tricked and lied to, so Dean needed help. He'd talk to his friend, tell him about his misery. Dean was pretty sure he could pay him at a later date.

Dean hit the gas pedal. If everything went according to plan, he'd be there in two days.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Eleven**  
by Steffi

"So, have you seen the film already or haven't you?" Alice asked. She sounded a little like someone losing patience with a child.

"I don't think so," Tom replied, wrapping the cord of the phone around his index finger. The television was on mute, the news was on.

"Well, should we go and see it?"

"Sure. Should I pick you up?"

He could hear Alice chuckle into the phone. "Without a car? No worries, I'll pick you up. Saturday, round 7?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"See you." The crackling on the other end of the line indicated Alice had ended the conversation, but Tom listened to the tone for a moment before he hung up the phone himself. He sighed, ruffled the hair at the back of his head and rested his chin in the palm of his left hand.

So far he'd been on a date with Alice three times, and he liked her. The first time they'd been out for a drink, the second time they'd spent the afternoon taking a walk, and the third time they'd gone to the movies where they'd watched some film with Steve Martin. Unlike Alice, _he_'d found the film so dead funny he'd spent the rest of the day randomly bursting into laughter. Alice had only raised one eyebrow, but apparently the whole thing hadn't put her off entirely. In fact, she'd just called to ask when she'd see him again. They'd be going to the movies again, only this time to watch some British romance flick. Whatever.

A smile flickered across Tom's face when it occurred to him how his life was slowly falling to place. He'd begun to actually have a life. Maybe he'd done something right in his old life at least and this was the reward? He had a job, a place to stay, friends and Alice. The little pieces he'd collected the past months were finally forming a big picture. A whole.

Tom glanced at the clock over the door and realised he should have set off for work ten minutes ago. Oh crap. He rushed to the mirror, tried to somehow comb his hair into something a little less messy, grabbed his bag and keys and bounced down the stairs like a child that had just been promised ice cream.

Dean parked the Impala at the side of the road and remained seated for a moment. Scanning the surroundings quickly, he sighed and inwardly rolled his eyes. Another one of those damn small towns. They all looked alike, and he couldn't tell one from another. Dean hated them. Hated them because these days, he hated everything. Even sunshine and black coffee.

When he finally decided to leave his car he opened the door carelessly, even without looking, and stepped out on the street. Faintly Dean heard the honking of the car that was forced to swerve. But he didn't actually notice it, like he didn't notice that it was pouring with rain and his clothes were getting wetter by the second. He slammed the car door closed and strode into the store.

Record stores. He remembered a time when he'd spent half his free time in those stores, listened to records he couldn't afford and dreamed of having a band of his own. He smirked at the thought and went to the counter, ignoring the records as he passed them by. A girl with dyed red hair and tons of eyeliner greeted him as he approached. She was apparently trying hard to pass for Emo or Goth and Dean thought that Sammy would have liked her.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"My name is Dean. Chris is expecting me."

"Just a moment," the girl replied and disappeared into a room Dean assumed was Chris' office. He'd never been here before. The store was new, Chris had moved here about a year or two ago. Dean rocked on the balls of his feet, back and forward, until the girl returned with Chris by her side. Metallica was playing on the speakers.

"There you are – I'd expected to see you sooner."

Dean just shrugged. "I got lost on the way."

"Dean Winchester got lost on the way? How the mighty have fallen! Come in," Chris offered, made a slight bow and Dean snorted. Chris was such a jerk. Dean followed Chris into his tiny office and sat down on a slightly dingy couch that had been placed up against the wall. Chris closed the door and took seat at his desk, leaning backward.

"How're you these days?" he asked.

"Fine," Dean answered automatically.

"You like like shit, Dean."

"Had a lot of stress lately."

"Right," Chris mumbled, before he asked more cheerfully, "Coffee?" Dean nodded and Chris grabbed two mugs from the closet behind his desk and filled them with coffee. He handed Dean one of the mugs and finally sat down on the desk.

"What's new with you?"

"Nothing." Dean shrugged and stared into his coffee. "You?"

"I got a new employee." Chris placed the mug on the desk. "Poor guy was found in a forest with no recollection of who he is and where he's from. And no one reported him missing so...strange thing. Anyway, he works for me now. He's settled in rather well, plus June and Mikey are taking care of him. It's almost like having a little brother. Speaking of which, he's late again. Probably been sweet-talking his girlfriend on the phone again."

Dean nodded, the knuckles of his hand had turned white but Chris didn't notice.

Chris cleared his throat: "So, why are you here?"

Dean named his orders: a fraud debit card that he could use until he got his new credit card, and some fake car plates. Chris noted everything down and told Dean the price, Dean only nodded. He'd explained his situation to Chris on the phone, and Chris had offered to delay payment until Dean could afford it. Dean had gotten to know Chris some years ago when they'd worked a job in Ohio where Chris had had his store back then. Sometimes Dean thought that Chris came the closest to someone Dean could refer to as "friend". Which basically meant that Dean talked to Chris about things other than weapons and demons and credit card fraud. When the time allowed it they had pretty normal conversations.

Chris opened the safe that was hidden away in the closet. He pulled forward a small brown box and handed Dean a debit card from it. From the shelf underneath Chris grabbed three fake plates, put them into a bag and gave it to Dean. Then Chris sat back down in his chair and put his feet on the desk.

"You sure you feel okay?" Chris asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Yes, everything is fine."

"Dean, you look terrible."

"Well, still look better than you." Dean grinned, and he rose. It had become hard to breathe all of a sudden, the air grew thick and heavy, sweat emerged on Dean's forehead. He quickly shook Chris' hand before Chris had time to get up, and left the store without turning back. Blood was rushing through his ears, and he knew his cheeks were flushed from the heat that Dean felt spreading through his body. In the door he bumped into someone he hadn't seen. "Just look where you're going, idiot," he barked.

Two minutes later Dean was back in his car and on the road to hunt demons.

Crap, he was late again. Crap, crap, crap.

Running down the street, Tom had pulled his hood deeply into his face and because it was raining and he didn't necessarily fancy water splashing into his face. Still he was grinning all over his face and couldn't help it, and he was pretty sure that he looked like Homer Simpson after he'd found a fridge filled with beer.

Tom crossed the street, face down to avoid the rain. He almost got run over from not looking, and flinched as the car honked loudly. Tom jumped on the sidewalk with one big leap, rushed forward to the doors and banged into someone who was leaving the store. "Just look where you're going, idiot." He heard the other man's voice but decided to ignore it. He was late and soaked, and he didn't want to start a fight. Tom pushed the hood back and ran his arm over his forehead, gasping for air. Bangs of his hair were falling into his face and dripping onto his cheeks. A puddle of water formed where he was standing. From the counter June smirked at him.

"Late again..."

"I know," Tom said, took off his jacket and threw it behind the counter carelessly. June pushed a pile of CDs over to Tom for sorting them in. Tom scratched the back of his head absent-mindedly and tried to focus on the CD cover, but something didn't feel right. He couldn't say what, though – it was a vague feeling, as if something was revealing itself right in front him, just in reach, but he had no idea what it was yet.

"How're things going with Alice?" June asked.

"Yeah, I bet you'd like to know." Tom grinned and June smacked the back of his head.

"Idiot."

Tom froze. _Just look where you're going, idiot_. The words of the man echoed in his head. Weird. He lifted the CDs to sort them into the shelves, and stopped, rooted to the spot as something occurred to him. It wasn't the words that made him feel uneasy, it was the voice. He knew the voice.

Maybe the man was just a customer that Tom had talked to before? Tom shook his head, no, that wasn't it. Something else. Much more familiar, much closer.

And then, suddenly, it dawned on Tom. It was the voice from his dreams.

The CDs fell to the ground with a loud clatter.

"Jesus Christ, Tom, are you okay?" June asked, first annoyance, then worry in her voice. Tom looked up, feeling how all colour vanished from his face. He opened his mouth, his lips tried to form words but his throat was too dry. His hands were shaking now, his heart was racing. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, _calm yourself down_, and then an idea came to him.

"June," he said, "Could I have a look at the tape from the surveillance camera? It's really important."

Not even Hannibal Lector would have been able resist Tom's puppy eyes. So June nodded and Tom went over to the counter where a little screen was showing everything the camera recorded. Tom rewound the tape a little and pushed the "play" button. While he was watching the video June kept an eye on Chris' office. She really didn't want to risk Chris finding out she'd just stopped the video recording.

Tom was staring on the screen, focusing so hard his eyes began to hurt. A couple of minutes and nothing happened, then a man entered the store. Tom narrowed his eyes and felt how every muscle in his body tensed. His stomach twisted as the man on the tape looked up to the camera for a moment and Tom got a glimpse of his face. Tom stopped the tape and stumbled a few steps backwards.

_Dean_ was all that he could think. The last missing piece, he'd found it. And all of a sudden the flashbacks and memories were completed with images of his brother. He was turning around and Dean was standing there, he was in the passenger seat and Dean was next to him driving. Other bits and pieces rushed through his mind, as if he'd opened a box that had been locked before. There was fire, always fire. Darkness, peril, and Dean - his brother - were everywhere.

"Tom? Are you okay?" June asked again, more insistently this time.

"No," he replied weakly, because he couldn't lie. Sweat emerged on his forehead, more images rushed through his mind but he couldn't yet place them. Graveyards, motels, _John_.

His name, Samuel, _Sam_ – not Sammy.

"Could you tell Chris I'm not feeling well and went home?" He resisted the urge to throw up all over the floor. His head hurt and that seemed familiar, too. Air, he needed fresh air.

"Sure," June said, obviously confused.

He smiled weakly, picked up his jacket and ran home, to _his_ home. Panicking, he locked the door from the inside, changed his wet clothes for dry ones and sat down on the bed, trying desperately to calm himself down. But there was no use, because now more memories were coming back and it felt like they were returning all at once. He was shivering.

And then there was another thing.

He'd seen _Dean_. And Dean hadn't looked good.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Twelve**  
by Steffi

Sam's phone rang three times that evening, and four times the next day. He assumed it was Alice who'd decided to check on him after she'd heard about his slight panic attack in the store the other day. It was likely that June had told her. But Alice didn't knock on his door, and Sam ignored the ringing of the phone.

He was lying curled up on his bed, blanket pulled up over his head. His arms were wrapped around his knees, he was freezing with cold. The window was ajar, but he couldn't bring himself to get up and close it.

As time passed more memories were returning to him, and it frightened him to see how many of them were painful and scary. His fight with John and the silence that followed. The quiet hurt in Dean's eyes as Sam left for college and left him behind. The death of Jess. All the bodies he'd found and searched in his life. All the tragedies of people who'd been hung, ripped apart, tortured and choked by demons or humans. Those who were left behind, who Sam had to interrogate to gain information so that they could waste the supernatural creatures. All the tears, the prayers, the despair and grief, and death everywhere – how had he been able to live with it for so long?

He thought of the past weeks. The times that he'd been to the movies, to the park, the times he'd fooled around with Mikey and June at work. The evenings in the bar, his place here. The hours spent with Alice. The picture had been complete, except maybe for the part where his brother belonged, and he'd been okay, hadn't he? He'd been happy, despite his amnesia. Happier than he now could remember he'd ever been. He'd had it all, for once.

The phone rang again, for longer this time, but Sam only covered his ears and closed his eyes, hoping it would go away. He didn't want to lose this. Not any of it. It was all his; friends and a job and pay and someone who would maybe soon be his girlfriend. It wasn't fair his past was now making demands to take that from him – _again._

So, what if he wouldn't let it be ripped from him? What if he decided to keep all this? What if he just decided to stay Tom, tell June he'd only felt sick that other day? Told her he thought he'd recognised someone but been mistaken?

Didn't he have the right to just... be normal?

Dean had been on his own before, he'd muddle through this time, too. And Sam happily ignored the fact that back then, Dean hadn't lived believing Sam was dead. Dean had once accused Sam of being selfish and maybe that was true. He wasn't like Dean, who put everyone and their cat first.

If he went looking for Dean and found him, that would mean he'd be stuck in that old life for the rest of his days. Dean would make him stay, would make him feel bad for wanting a normal life, and Sam would not be able to decline Dean's plea. Same old story.

If only he'd never remembered.

He stayed in bed till morning. The day passed, night fell, the next morning came. A couple of times nature took its toll, and twice he got up to fetch a bottle of coke and a bag of M&Ms. Since he wasn't actually hungry he chewed on the chocolate only half-heartedly. At four in the morning, Sam was determined to stay Tom. An hour later he decided to go and search for Dean. At six he changed his mind again. When he got up at seven he had no idea what he was going to do. He couldn't stay Tom _and_ let Dean know he was fine. It would never work.

When he finally left his apartment he had no recollection of how he'd showered, brushed his teeth, got dressed, drunk his coffee, put on his shoes, combed his hair, closed the window and locked the door. Huh. Well, problems with his memory weren't new after all. He shook his head and set off for the store.

The way had never seemed longer and harder to him. With a goosebumps in his neck he walked along the road, always expecting to see Dean. Now that he remembered his brother it only seemed natural he'd turn up every moment. A black car passed Sam by and he flinched, but it wasn't an Impala. His face was reflected in the windows as the car drove by, and it wasn't a pretty sight. Eyes shadowed, his hair sticking out into every direction. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

He was ten minutes early when he arrived at the record store. Chris wasn't there yet, Mikey had opened the shop and was now scurrying around the shelves. He greeted Sam with a nod.

"Morning, Tom," he said.

"Morning," Sam muttered and shuffled over to the counter. He took off his jacket and placed it over the back of the chair. His glance passed the posters at the wall and finally met the video camera. His stomach dropped instantly, and Sam bit his lower lip. Damn, couldn't he pull himself together at all?

Two minutes later he was watching the tape from two days ago again.

Dean, it was definitely Dean on that tape. Even if he'd changed a lot. His face was thinner, gaunt, the chin peaked, dark circles around his eyes. His brother looked different from the way Sam remembered him. It was the way he walked and looked up to the camera, with his old cockiness and carelessness completely gone.

Sam stopped the video and took a deep breath. Dean would be fine. He'd probably just had a bad day. After all, it was _Dean_. Nothing could hurt him.

Sam knew it was a lie he was telling himself.

He didn't notice when Chris entered the store. He was so lost in thought that when Chris addressed him, he jumped and the pencil he'd been chewing on fell from his mouth to the ground.

"Feeling better?" Chris asked.

Sam nodded, the question echoed dimly in his head. Chris nodded back, the answer was enough apparently. He passed Sam and had about reached the door to his office when Sam turned around and said, "Wait."

Chris stopped. "What?"

Sam opened his mouth to speak but it was too dry to form words. Sam tried again, but it seemed like his tongue and vocal cords and lips weren't willing to produce any sounds. None at all. It was only when Chris turned his back on Sam with a shrug that Sam finally managed to say, "I remember."

Chris froze. "Remember what?"

Sam breathed out and closed his eyes for two seconds. "I remember who am I."

And thus his fate was decided. He'd go looking for Dean, and hunt with him again, there was no turning back now. Waving goodbye, his new life here vanished into the distance. Inwardly Sam was waving back.

"Come again?" Chris asked.

"My name," Sam said slowly, "Is Sam. Sam Winchester."

Chris' jaw dropped through the floor right into the basement. His face lost all color. "Winchester?" he parroted weakly.

"Yes." Sam narrowed his eyes a little, trying to figure out whether he could trust Chris with the whole truth or not. He decided in Chris' favor. "Dean is my brother. It... it might be that he thinks I'm dead."

The house. The fire. The events were returning to his mind now. His clothes had been on fire, pain, there had definitely been pain. Dean's voice through the noise of the flames. The girl had helped him. Sam blinked and shook his head, now wasn't the time.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No... Chris, I know this sounds crazy but Dean was here the day before yesterday and... he bumped into me, and I recognised him too late. By the time I did he was long gone, but it was definitely him. Things were beginning to come back to me then..."

"That's why you stayed away from work," Chris mumbled. He looked at Sam with confusion in his eyes, but he sounded like he was starting to believe him.

"Yes," Sam answered quietly.

"Jesus."

"Hell, yeah."

"He's really your brother? You're Sam who went to Stanford?"

"Yeah." There was a pause, from outside noises were crowding in but inside the store it was perfectly still. Mikey had stopped sorting in CDs and was listening now, too.

"I gotta find him," Sam finally said.

"You should. He looked like crap, but he wouldn't tell me what's wrong. And damn, I even told him about you..."

Sam's eyebrows rocked upwards, yes, definitely sounded like Dean. Not telling what was wrong but piling everything up. "Fucking idiot," he muttered.

Chris didn't reply.

"I'm going to buy a car," Sam said abruptly. "I've saved money, should be enough." Then another idea rushed through his mind, and he looked up. "Do you have his phone number?"

"He gave me his number once, but I dunno whether it still works. Let's check it out."

Sam followed Chris into the office and closed the door. With amazing predictability Chris picked a post-it with a phone number from a huge pile of random pieces of paper. Chris reached for his phone and dialed the number, Sam felt how his pulse doubled. But no one picked up the phone, and a female voice at the other end of the line informed them that the number they tried to reach was non existent. Chris hung up and Sam only realised now he'd held his breath all the time.

"Guess he's got a new cell phone. He didn't give me the number, though, Tom – uh, Sam."

"Don't worry." Sam put his hands into his pockets and tried to imagine Dean in this room – sitting on the couch, talking. It was almost as if Dean was still here or part of him was, anyway. His aura lingered on. Sam grinned at the thought, Dean would have had a thing or two to say about that. Fuck, why had he been late for work that day? Then he would have actually seen Dean, or even better, Dean would have seen _him_.

"I'm going to look for him." Sam had averted his gaze and was talking to himself rather than Chris. "I'll just ask at the gas stations and motels, black Chevy Impala, those cars are rare and eye-catching."

"You should, Sam," Chris replied, "And when you find him, let me know."

This was one of the times when Sam was actually glad he didn't own much, because it didn't take long to pack his stuff and leave the place. He threw his few books and CDs, the small stereo and TV (maybe he'd be able to sell it somewhere) into the trunk along with the bag with his clothes and his other stuff. Downstairs, in front of the door the old Volvo he'd bought two hours ago was parked, awaiting his new master. It was dark green, a little rusty, but it was still running and rolling, and that was enough.

Sam folded the blanket he'd bought the other day and knocked over the phone as he turned around. The phone – Alice came to his mind. Sam liked her, he really did. He would have loved to stay and play Tom Beretta for her. It wouldn't have bothered him if she'd never learned his real name. But now too much was at stake, and he owed it to Dean.

When Sam was finished the apartment looked like when he'd first entered it. Empty, naked, a little degenerate. The wallpaper was still as horrible as ever, but over the past months Sam had formed a love-hate relationship with it, and now he had a feeling he'd actually miss it. He took a final look around, then he grabbed the last bits of his possessions and muttered "Goodbye." He locked the door and threw the keys into Susan's mail box, along with a short note.

He left without saying Goodbye to anyone. Mikey and Chris knew where he was going, June would find out. So would Alice.

Sam started the engine and hit the gas.

As he glanced into the rear mirror the town behind him was constantly growing smaller and was soon completely out of sight.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Thirteen**  
by Steffi

Sam had one advantage: Dean drove a 1967 Chevy Impala. Not only were those definitely eye-catching, they also used about two hundred gallons of gasoline a day. Chances were high Dean needed to stop for gas quite regularly, which made it easier for Sam to follow his trail. So Sam canvassed the owners and customers in roadhouses, diners and gas stations, asking whether someone had seen a car like that. He wasn't always lucky. Twice he had to turn around and take a different route after the trail had gotten cold. And while Sam was taking all those detours he knew he was losing time, and Dean.

But it was the only way to find his brother, and Sam was determined to. When the end of the first day drew close Sam had at least a rough idea of where Dean was going. It looked like he was heading North, and Sam assumed his brother had dug up another job.

When Sam checked into the cheap motel he'd decided to spend his night in he realised for the first time he wasn't only worried for Dean, but also missing his brother. It was weird to be sitting alone here with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Without Dean driving him nuts with witless comments and silly jokes. Without hanging out in a bar after nightfall and watching Dean thrash other people at pool and hustle them out of as much money as they were stupid enough to put down. Right now, Sam would have given anything for a conversation or even fight with Dean. It was better than nothing.

Sam threw his stuff on his bed and decided to take a shower. His back was hurting from the long drive, and his neck felt uncomfortably stiff. While Sam was searching his bag for his shampoo, he thought back over the day. Hardly anyone in diners and bars had seen Dean, which was weird, because Dean must have come their way. Sam had gotten almost all his information from people at gas stations. Sam shook his head, something was wrong. Hadn't stopped Dean anywhere to have lunch, or dinner? Or a snack? Sam remembered that his brother was constantly hungry, and probably would have eaten all day if Sam had let him.

He showered and when he returned to the bedroom, daylight had made way to nightfall. With a sigh Sam flung himself across the bed and closed his eyes. He felt exhausted and tired, and frustrated. Tomorrow was a new day, maybe he'd find Dean then. He _had_ to find him. Sam skillfully avoided thinking of how Dean would react when they finally met.

That other life, the life of Tom Beretta, already lay behind him like all those other false identities he'd lived under in his life. Only that this time he'd actually been Tom for a while. Not just pretended to be. But all that felt like a dream to him now, it was already long gone. He was Sam Winchester again, demon hunter and the most normal thing about him was the old rusty car he drove. With an uneasy feeling Sam noticed how he'd felt home right away in the motel room here, and he wished things were different. But they weren't, and he would have to learn to deal with it.

To say it was dark would have been an understatement, because the hallway was pitch black. The smell of mildew and ancient bleach hung in the air, thickened by dust so that breathing became an effort. The perfect silence that lay over the building was only disturbed by the quiet buzzing of the EMF meter. Dean straightened a little and narrowed his eyes when the EMF meter in his hands screeched. He turned around and the whistling and buzzing grew louder.

"Bullseye," Dean mumbled. Carefully he placed one foot before the other as he peeked around the corner and finally entered another corridor. It was less dark than the other hallway, because through three blurred windows moonlight was falling in, and outside Dean spotted the old sign high against the dark sky that said "Jameson's Motel".

The EMF crackled, something scampered through the corridor. A door creaked. Dean lifted the shotgun and ran his hand over his eyes, he blinked. On the right side, a door opened a little of its own accord, accompanied by another long creak. Step by step Dean moved on, and until he'd placed himself in front of the door which stood now slightly ajar. Dean took a deep breath, and pushed the door open a little more. Behind the door Dean could make out the beginning of a stairway leading down a narrow corridor. No lights, only darkness. Dean took another step forward, not noticing that he had company. A man in a black suit with a briefcase in his hand was standing behind him. The man's throat was swollen and red.

With an awful realisation Dean slowly turned around and faced the spirit. He tried to shoot, but his movements were too sluggish, and before he could even pull the trigger the spirit had whacked Dean on the chin with his briefcase. Dean lost his balance, staggered backwards and tumbled down the stairs until he landed on the hard ground with a yell. Coughing, he looked up and caught sight of the shotgun that was lying two or three yards away. With an effort Dean crawled forward a little and grimaced with pain, then stopped when the man in the suit appeared in front of him. The spirit grinned down on Dean.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, his breathing laboured.

The spirit grabbed Dean by the collar of his leather jacket and tossed him around. Dean tried to stand up, but his legs felt like they were made of rubber and they wouldn't obey him and he fell to the ground again. His hands were fumbling for something he could use as a weapon in the dust and rubble, but there was nothing. The spirit reappeared, still grinning, now standing over him, kicking Dean in the chin so hard he was thrown back. He didn't even notice when his head hit the stone floor hard. His eyes were searching for something to focus on as he tried to roll onto his side, his eyelids fluttering, he coughed twice. Something pointy was sticking into his back.

A rope was placed around his neck, Dean didn't fight it, he couldn't. Instead, he smiled. The spirit tightened the noose and threw the rope over a joist, then he pulled.

Instinctively Dean's hands rocketed upwards to the noose, trying desperately to loosen it but the strength of the spirit was too great. Dean was pulled up, until he was on his feet even though they weren't carrying his weight any more, but he was pulled even higher and his feet lost contact to the ground completely. Dean's face turned red first, then blue, his lips lost all color. He was gasping for air to fill his lungs but none would come, made one last attempt to loosen the noose, but it was in vain. His breathing was no more than a rattle, and finally his body limped, his eyes closed and he stopped breathing at all.

The spirit laughed out and let go of the rope. Dean's neck made a horrible crack as it broke when his dead body hit the ground.

Sam opened his eyes and instantly knew it had been a vision, and not just a dream. His t-shirt stuck to him like a second layer of skin, the pillow was wet with sweat. Wisps of his hair clung like wax to his forehead and he remained lying in the bed for some minutes unmoving, taking deep breaths to shake off the images that were still dancing in front of his eyes.

No dream. A vision. A taste of what was going to happen if Sam would find Dean too late. It had been night in his dream – but which night? Was it still to come, or was Dean already dead? Outside dawn was breaking, and Sam hoped that the fateful night was yet to come.

He sat up and rested his forehead in his hands, wiping the sweat from it with his arm. The window was a slightly open, and the cold air made him feel freezing.

So, Dean would die. Would die at the hands of a spirit, just like that, as if his brother was like everybody else. Sam remembered the clumsy way Dean had tried to defend himself, it hadn't looked like him at all. From the moment the spirit had appeared Dean had been prey, not a hunter. Sam swallowed some tears down and wrapped his arms around his legs.

How was he supposed to find Dean?

Then Sam remembered the signboard, "Jameson's Motel". He leaped out of bed into the bathroom almost instantly, where he underwent the shortest shower in his entire life. Just twenty minutes later he was all packed up and ready to go. He stowed his bags in the trunk of his Volvo, and hit the road. He had to find an internet café, fast.

The next best café was still closed when Sam parked his car, and wouldn't open before 9AM. Sam glanced at his watch, it was a quarter to nine. He sighed and let his head sink on the steering wheel, perfect. Perfect. He didn't have fifteen minutes to lose, but there was nothing he could do about it. His wrist watch ticked loudly. It almost drove him crazy. When the café finally opened its doors Sam was the first to occupy one of the computers. Trying hard to focus – which wasn't easy because the sound of Dean's neck breaking was still ringing in his ears – he googled the name of the motel. Images of Dean dying flashed up to accompany the crack of broken bones as Dean fell to the ground. Sam shook his head and closed his eyes, _Focus, dammit._

Lots of motels turned up when Sam entered the name, there were about a hundred of them. How was he supposed to find the motel fast? He added another word to the keywords, "murder" first, then "suicide" when the results didn't get him anywhere. Sam clicked the first article that showed up and froze. A shiver ran down his spine and he knew that he'd found the place he was looking for.

It was an old article, and Sam recognised the signboard on the photo immediately. The motel had been abandoned years ago, after a row of mysterious deaths had forced the owner to close the business. Some people even claimed the motel was haunted. Sam ripped a piece of paper from his notepad and wrote down the address.

He risked speeding tickets and trouble with the police that day, and drove as fast as his car would allow it. Rushing across highways and interstates he prayed he would reach Dean in time. Sam couldn't get rid of the image that had been haunting him all day, the way Dean was being beaten up by a spirit, the way he'd looked so weak and ill, so not Dean-like at all. The way Dean died. It seemed so unreal, so fake. Against the laws of nature.

Sam stopped only twice on the way. One time he bought a snack, something he could eat on the way because his stomach was complaining loudly about the lack of food. The second time he had to pee.

The streets and towns rushed by and he didn't even really notice. He was sweating with fear, and his fingers were so slippery it became hard to hold on to the wheel. In silence he spoke a prayer that he would find Dean in time, just in case there was a God and that God was listening. The speedometer was on the verge of falling apart entirely, the engine moaned with strain.

"Just get me to the motel," Sam begged "Just get me to the motel."

Dean turned off the engine and leaned forward a bit so he could get a proper look at the motel through the wind shield. It would be another two hours till dusk, and the sun was shining bright through the windows, warming Dean's face. It felt good. The past couple of days he'd been constantly cold. He scanned the building for movement but everything remained still. It was too early.

Closing his eyes he tilted his head until it rested against the leather of the seat's back. He crossed his arms in front of his chest in an attempt to keep himself warm. It was definitely too cool, and he was too tired. A shiver ran through his body and he observed it with disgust. Hell, it wasn't _that_ chilly outside. Was he becoming completely pathetic?

When he finally dozed off his dreams were jumbled and nonsensical – he dreamed about his mother, and oversized grasshoppers that were trying to kill him – maybe he shouldn't have watched Starship Troopers after all. He was at a carnival and and lost in a room full of mirrors, then he was in the ocean, being swallowed by gigantic waves and he the only reason why he didn't drown was that he could breathe under water. And dimly Sam's voice resounded in his dream, "Dean, you've got to stop."

When he woke up it was already midnight, and his head felt like someone had hit him with a baseball bat. Next to him the EMF meter was buzzing quietly. Dean rubbed his eyes and straightened a little. A wave of nausea overcame him, and he quickly closed his eyes and waited for the feeling to pass. When it did, he grabbed the EMF meter and the duffle bag that were lying in the passenger seat, in Sammy's place.

He locked the Impala and marched across the parking lot over to the building that was – according to legend – haunted by a spirit. A rich broker had hung himself in that motel on the Black Friday in 1929. Ever since, he'd been haunting and killing, until the motel had been closed down. A sudden gust that swept across the parking lot and into the bushes made Dean shiver with cold again. Once more he ran his hand over his eyes as black spots began to dance in his sight. Jesus Christ, had he been drinking? He was pretty sure he hadn't touched alcohol in weeks. It was too expensive.

The door was locked, but could easily be opened with help of a crowbar. Dean got his flashlight out of the duffle bag along with a shotgun, and stepped through the door into the building. He entered a pitch black corridor.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Fourteen**  
by Steffi

It was dark and a long time after nightfall when Sam reached Jameson's Motel, and he almost steered his Volvo into a tree in shock when he saw that the Impala was already parked in front of the haunted building.

"No," Sam whispered, the knuckles of his hand had turned white. He leaped out of the car as soon as he put the hand brake on. He slammed the door close and was at the Impala's side within two long strides. He put his hands at each side of his face against the window pane so he could see better, but as expected there was no one in the car. He then rushed to the weapon trunk, but as he'd also expected Dean had locked the trunk. Sam jiggled the lid, but it wouldn't open. Damn.

"Shit!" Sam cursed, and the next moment he heard a scream from the inside of the building that echoed in the parking lot and made Sam's blood freeze in his veins. "Dean!" he yelled, knowing his brother couldn't hear him. The next second he was sprinting across the parking lot, and two seconds later he found himself standing in the corridor he'd seen in his vision.

The overwhelming smell of mildew and dust hit him, and for a short moment he held his nose before he remembered Dean and why he was here. Looking around for a moment for orientation, he spotted the corner and the corridor Dean had taken in his vision. Sam ran, heedless of any danger to himself, because he knew the spirit wasn't here but downstairs, choking Dean. He saw the door leading to the basement was open and stumbled the stairs down in a hurry, and even though he knew what was waiting for him nothing in the world could have prepared him for the sight he encountered.

Dean knew he was going to die. He knew it the moment the spirit pushed him down the stairs. He knew that this time there would be no way out. He defended himself half-heartedly when the spirit dragged him across the floor and kicked him in the face. The will to survive flared up somewhere deep inside of him, but there was nothing he could do. His arms were too weak, his legs useless, and the world was spinning.

So he would die, like this. He smiled at the thought when the spirit placed the noose around his neck, and added another word, _finally_.

It was okay.

The noose tightened, and all air to his lungs was cut off. He was pulled up until he was hanging in the air like a marionette. Somehow his hands had found their way up towards the rope around his neck, pulling at it to loosen the noose. What the hell was he doing here? His body struggled and convulsed, trying to free itself. And he was gasping for air to live when all he wanted was to die.

What was left of the air in his lungs dissolved and his heart was racing as if it wanted to burst out of his chest. It was demanding for oxygen Dean couldn't provide it with. The rough rope was chafing Dean's neck and throat. His breath was no more than a death rattle, his body quivered until everything grew quiet and calm, until his vision blurred and he lost consciousness.

Dean was hanging lifelessly from the rope, his chin resting on his chest. His face had turned ashen. He looked like a puppet, like someone else, but not like Dean. And next to him stood the spirit, sneering at Dean just like in Sam's vision.

Sam's heart beat doubled, and his fear mingled with pure hatred. No one laughed at his brother, no one. Nobody but himself and even then, not like that.

He jumped from the last stair and ran over to Dean, picking up the shotgun from the ground as he passed it, aimed, and shot. The the rock salt hit the spirit with full force and it vanished with a scream. The moment the spirit let go of the rope Dean crashed to the ground, or would have if Sam hadn't been there in time to catch him. He leaped forward and his arms closed around Dean's body as they both fell, Sam dampening Dean's fall. Sam's first thought was that Dean pretty light – too light. Sam could feel his brother's shoulder blades and ribs sticking out under Dean's shirt.

Somebody had come, Dean could hear a shot from far away through the darkness. That was funny – he was dead, wasn't he? Could you still hear when you were dead? He was falling and mentally preparing himself for hitting the ground, but he never did. Instead arms curled around him and there was no pain as he landed. He was carefully lowered to the ground, someone called his name. He thought he heard Sam's voice, so maybe he was dead after all, and this was what dying felt like. He forced his eyes open a crack, but his vision was so blurred he couldn't see anything. He wanted to respond but no sounds made it out of his mouth, and in the end he fell back to merciful unconsciousness.

Sam freed himself from the embrace and carefully lowered Dean onto the ground. Instinctively he reached for the shotgun he'd lost when he'd fallen with Dean in his arms. He crawled over to his brother who was lying on the side now, dirt in his face and not even stirring. With trembling fingers Sam pulled the noose over Dean's head and threw it away. Dean winced when Sam moved the rope and deep, bloody grazes surfaced.

"Dean," Sam whispered, shaking Dean's shoulders a little. Dean opened his eyes slowly, but his gaze was unfocused. His lips formed a silent word, three letters, "Sam", before his lids fluttered and he passed out again.

"Dean, we have to get out of here," Sam said. He put his arm under Dean's right arm and picked his brother up in a fireman's lift. With the shotgun in his left hand Sam began to carefully climb the steps, realising with an uneasy feeling he had not been mistaken – Dean had definitely lost weight. A lot of weight.

Sam looked up and saw the spirit standing in the door frame. He was yelling down at them but Sam didn't listen and just shot rock salt at the spirit again. His opponent disappeared, and Sam quickened his pace as much as he could. He couldn't run as fast as he'd liked with Dean hanging over his shoulder. Once more the spirit blocked Sam's way, and Sam wasted the last ammo on the spirit, and then they were finally outside. Sam stopped when they were definitely out of the spirit's reach and took a deep breath. He walked over to the Impala, lowered Dean and leaned him against the side of the car. In Dean's jacket pocket Sam found the keys for the Chevy, he opened the doors and carefully maneuvered Dean into the passenger seat. Dean was still silent and unresponsive, but he frowned a little when Sam addressed him and Sam decided to take that as a good sign.

After he'd packed his stuff from the Volvo into the Impala, Sam climbed into the driver's seat and tried to think logically. Should he take Dean to a hospital? Dean didn't appear to have any limbs broken, and as far as Sam could tell he wasn't bleeding either. Still – what if he was injured internally? But then, if he took Dean to hospital in his current state Sam wasn't sure Dean wouldn't start to ramble about ghosts and spirits in front of the doctors. And for the first time in his life Sam was scared that Dean might end up in a mental facility. The marks on his neck were clear, and the doctors would probably rate him suicidal. And then there was the tiny problem that Dean still thought Sam was dead.

No, Sam shook his head, he'd take his chances and not take Dean to hospital but to the motel instead. Maybe things looked worse than they actually were. Sam started the engine and switched the radio on. Metallica was playing, Jimmy was angry again, maybe stuff like that would help Dean.

The first motel they encountered became their refuge for the days to come. Sam had to put up a real act this time to hide his panic, and when the owner handed him the keys Sam managed to say with an apologetic smile that his brother was a little drunk and he had better get him to bed now. The man nodded and Sam smiled again even though he didn't feel at all like smiling.

After he'd brought Dean to the room and laid him down on the bed he went to fetch their stuff. When he returned he locked the door, just to be sure. Dean scared the heck out of him, and he wanted to make sure his brother wouldn't get up in the middle of the night and leave. Though Sam highly doubted that Dean was able to when he had another look at him.

In the darkness of the basement and the night, Dean hadn't looked _that_ bad. But now with the lights switched on his condition became clear to Sam, and he was so unprepared he forgot how to breathe and had to sit down.

It wasn't the deep red line that ran around Dean's throat. Or the dirt in his face or the torn clothes. Sam had seen it before, it didn't scare him any more. What did scare him were the other things. The fact that Dean hadn't only lost weight but also looked severely malnourished. His shirt and jeans dangled around his legs and arms which had grown horribly thin. His chin was sharp, his face had become gaunt and his eyes were sunken and deeply shadowed. He had a paleness that was caused by more than the noose around his neck and that had definitely been there before. It was tiny things, like Dean wearing unwashed clothes. Like Dean's hair being a little too long and uncut. He looked bedraggled. He had become bedraggled. This wasn't his Dean, the notion rushed through Sam's mind and he backed off a little, just enough to immediately feel guilty for it. After all, _he_ had done this to Dean.

Dean began to shiver, and it was only now Sam noticed the cold sweat on his brother's forehead. Dean grimaced as if he was in pain which was probably true. Sam put the back of his hand on Dean's forehead and flinched when it touched Dean's skin. His brother was burning up with fever.

"Christ," Sam muttered. He remembered how ill Dean had looked in his vision, how he'd run his hand over his eyes a couple of times. It dawned on Sam that Dean hadn't only looked ill. Fucking idiot – you must never hunt when you're ill, didn't Dean remember anything Dad had taught them?

Dad. Sam would call him. Later.

Sam knelt next to the bed, and began to pull Dean's shirt over his head. Sam gasped with shock when the bruises and injuries that Dean had collected over the past months became apparent. A lot of them hadn't healed completely yet. None of them had been taken care of properly. Sam closed his eyes when his fingers began to tremble, and then he forced himself to ignore these things for the moment and focus on bringing down the fever.

"I know I'll never hear the end of this..." Sam muttered absent-mindedly. He managed to slip a fresh shirt over Dean's head and took off the dirty pair of jeans Dean was wearing, then he tucked Dean in carefully. From the bathroom Sam fetched some towels that he'd soaked in water and wrapped around Dean's calves under the blanket. Another wet cloth Sam placed on Dean's forehead. Dean mumbled something unintelligible when the cool cloth touched his skin, but he didn't wake up.

"Dean, what the hell have you done to yourself?" Sam asked, gently stroking Dean's right arm. He knew very well what Dean had done but he couldn't believe it. Not Dean, not his brother.

Fever was nothing more than a defense mechanism. It meant that the body was sick. It probably also meant Dean had just collapsed from complete and utter exhaustion. Judging by his appearance Sam wondered how he could have kept going for so long.

Every thirty minutes Sam changed the wet towels and cloths. Sometimes Dean's body shook violently, and seizures tortured him, the bed rattled and Dean's teeth clattered and it scared the living daylights out of Sam. Dean's limbs didn't seem to be under his control any longer, and so Sam just wrapped his arms around Dean's chest, whispering things into his brother's ear to calm him down. He told him stories about their Dad, about Mom – stories that Dean had once told Sam. Their mother baking cookies and the smell spreading through the house. Dad quietly humming Johnny Cash songs to lull Dean to sleep.

It worked and Dean relaxed, but when Sam tried to give his brother a pill against the fever Dean pressed his lips together and wouldn't allow it.

When dawn broke, Dean's condition finally improved a little. The fever was still high, but the seizures stopped and Dean's breaths grew a little deeper and more steady. He actually seemed to have fallen asleep, which was good, Sam hoped. He would have liked to sleep a little, too, but that was out of the question. Dean might need him, besides, there was still something to do he had been putting off for hours.

His stomach dropped a bit as he dialed his Dad's number. It amazed him he still knew the number by heart. He expected to hear Dad's mailbox and had already prepared a message to leave on it when the phone was picked up after it had rung twice.

"Dean?" he heard his father's voice. It sounded small and fragile. And desperate, very desperate.

"No...me. Sam."

At the other end of the line it grew very still. Sam held his breath.

"Sammy?" his Dad finally asked.

"Yes."

Another pause, and it was Sam who finally spoke:

"I know Dean told you I'm dead. Hell, he thinks I'm dead. But I'm not. And I know it sounds like a really, really bad excuse or cliché but the past months I've had amnesia and I only remembered everything a couple of days ago and then I tried to find Dean and..."

"And did you?" His Dad sounded tense, anxious even. He didn't even ask Sam why the hell he should believe he really was Sam and not just a demon impersonating his dead son.

"Yes Dad. I did."

"And...is he...?" The words trailed off. Sam could tell his father was scared.

"He's... he's alive," Sam finally said. "But he's far from being okay. You should come, Dad. He needs you."

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Fifteen**  
by Steffi

When Dean woke the next morning and looked at his brother with glassy eyes Sam knew it wasn't over yet. He rose from the chair that he'd spent the night in, keeping watch by Dean's bed even though his own bed was just a few feet away, and put his hand on Dean's forehead again. It was still hot with fever, but the temperature was a little lower.

"Dean? How're you feeling?" Sam asked quietly. A volatile smile flickered across Dean's face as Sam spoke to him, but he didn't reply. His cheeks that had been so pale the night before were now flushed with fever. It made him look more healthy but the sight was deceiving. Dean stared vacantly into the distance. He was absorbed in his own world.

"Do you think you can take a pill, Dean?" Sam soothed, "And drink something?"

A glass filled with water was already on the nightstand. Sam broke a pill from the package and sat down on the edge of Dean's bed.

"Look, " he muttered, "You gotta help me here, Dean."

Holding the pill between his middle finger and thumb, Sam carefully tried to push it into Dean's mouth. Dean wasn't helping at all, but he allowed his brother to put the pill in his mouth. At least this time Sam was able to give him the medicine.

"Good," Sam said, trying to sound calm and reassuring, "Now come on... let's swallow it down with something." Sam reached for the glass of water and put it to Dean's lips. With his left hand Sam supported the back of Dean's head so that Dean could sit up a little. His hair was damp and clumped together from sweat and grime. Hastily, Dean took a couple of mouthfuls, so hastily that Sam had to put the glass down again. "Not so fast, Dean, you're not doing yourself any good," he said and lowered his brother to the mattress and the pillows again. Dean closed his eyes and fell asleep right away. Sam watched him for a minute, clueless about what he was to do next. He'd only seen Dean fall ill about twice in his life, and he hadn't had any chance of developing routine in treating fever and colds. He could deal with gunshot wounds, stab wounds, abrasions – but fever? Not so much.

At least Dean was on the mend, or so it seemed. Sam would have to hang on to that. He let his forehead rest in the palms of his hands and closed his eyes. He was on the verge of being overcome by exhaustion, and he couldn't have that. Not until he knew for sure that Dean was out of the woods. Not until Dean knew he was still alive.

Right, he needed coffee. Sam rose and walked over to the kitchenette, and a few minutes later the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the room. Sam poured some of the coffee into a mug that had been neatly placed on the window sill and returned to the bedroom. He sat down at the table by the window so he could watch Dean. Sam had drawn the curtains apart a little and the morning sun was bathing the room in a soft yellow light. The sounds of cars and voices from outside could just be heard, quietly, like background noise in a movie. Then, from inside the room another voice – fragile, yet definitely Dean's – was added:

"You've come to visit me."

Sam looked up and saw that Dean's eyes were focused on him even though his gaze was still feverish, then he smiled and before Sam could say or do anything Dean had dozed off again. Sam had a faint idea of what Dean had been trying to say, what he'd been thinking and Sam didn't like that at all. He wished he could take that pain away from Dean now, tell him that he was still alive and okay and with him, but in Dean's feverish state there was no use. That would have to wait for when Dean was feeling better and could think clearly again. Hopefully that would be soon. Hopefully Dad would come as he'd promised on the phone.

Sam straightened, his joints clicked and popped. With hanging shoulders he shuffled over to his bed where he had spread some of his belongings yesterday, particularly some fresh shirts that Dean might put on instead of his own torn and dirty clothes. Between his stuff there was a notepad and some pens that Sam took back to the table. He opened the notepad and tried to think of something to fill the empty pages with. Scratching the back of his head with the pen he stared at the pages, trying to figure out how to explain this all to Alice. She deserved a note, an explanation of why he'd left. But sitting here, searching for the right words it became distinctly clear to Sam why he'd never aspired to be a writer.

When Sam realised he would never be able to write an eloquent or intelligent letter he decided to do what he could write, an awkward and slightly confusing one. Despite what Dean thought, Sam had never been particularly good with words. He could read and interpret them all right, but as soon as it was him holding the pencil he was reduced to the level of an eight year old.

The pencil slid over the paper, telling Alice everything (everything but the spirits and the burning-a-house-down-issue). Telling her about his dreams, the voice in his dreams, his encounter with Dean in Chris' store, telling her how scared he'd been. Too scared to go back to his old life at once. He told her how bad his brother had looked on the tape and that he'd gone to find Dean. He told her that he had found Dean, but that he needed to stay with him now, because he was too worried about Dean.

When he was done Sam read the letter over again. Had he still been in school, any sane teacher would have handed the letter back to him and demanded he write a new one. The sentences were verging on incoherent and turned into mindless rambling at times, but it was the best Sam could come up with at the moment. Sam's eyes wandered from the edge of the notepad over to his brother, who was still asleep and hopefully fighting off the fever. His chest rose and fell in steady breaths. The cheeks were less flushed, but at the same time his face looked less relaxed than before. His forehead twisted into a frown he mumbled something in his sleep that Sam couldn't understand, but twice he thought he'd heard his name.

Just to be on the safe side and because the waiting drove him insane Sam changed the calf packings again. The whole situation drove him insane. Looking at Dean drove him insane. He didn't dare to imagine what the past months must have been like for Dean. Compared to that, his own amnesia-related problems seemed small and insignificant. His Dad had told him on the phone that Dean had informed him about Sam's death, but after that Dad hadn't been able to reach Dean any more. Sam assumed Dean had been too afraid of his father's reaction. And he wondered whether Dad knew that, too.

A chill ran down Sam's body when he remembered how he'd almost decided to stay Tom and not go looking for Dean. He would have been too late, vision or not, and Dean would have been dead by now. And if not now, then maybe next week or the week after. It would have only been a matter of time.

Sam's hands began to tremble. He averted his gaze in shame even though Dean couldn't see him. He felt sick and angry with himself as he realised how close he'd come to sending Dean to his death. Yes, he had been selfish. Because he'd felt that his family was owing him something, while in fact things were the other way round.

If anyone had ever owed anything to someone else, then he owed something to Dean. Owed him a lot, in fact. Possibly more than he could ever make up for. And Dean never mentioned it, never asked for anything in return. Because it was in his nature, because he didn't ask anything of life, because he was content just knowing his family was safe.

Sam had always looked down a little on Dean from the moment he'd hit puberty, his childish admiration had made way for unjustified haughtiness. Even when they'd met after four years and started to respect each other for what they were, Sam had always been glad Dean and he were so different. Now, for the first time in his life, he wished he was a little more like Dean.

Sam walked over to Dean's bed once more, sat down on the edge of the mattress and checked Dean's temperature by putting the back of his hand on Dean's forehead. The fever was as good as gone. Sam breathed a deep sigh of relief.

A hand grabbed his arm, fingers curling around it. It was Dean. Sam flinched back but his brother held on to his arm with a resolution that Sam would have never thought possible with Dean in his current state. Dean's eyes were widened in horror as he looked at Sam. His gaze was clear now and fixed upon Sam. His lips were firmly pressed together, and his fingernails were buried deep in Sam's skin and flesh.

"Dean," Sam said, "It's me…" but Dean didn't respond. Instead he kept staring at Sam. He didn't move, and his breath had gone shallow again. Sam wanted to reach for Dean with his other hand but in that moment Dean let go. He rolled over and fell into the gap between bed and wall. There was a loud thud as his body hit the floor. Sam flung himself across the bed to find that Dean had already managed to move himself into a sitting position. His back was pressed against the wall, like an animal that had been cornered and was waiting to be slaughtered. Dean's fingers were dug into the fibres of the carpet like the claws of a cat. Madness was in his eyes, and sweat was running down from his forehead.

"Fuck off," he growled.

"Dean," Sam repeated, trying to make his voice calm. "It's me." He slid off the bed and slowly crawled over to his brother. Dean shook his head violently.

"Fuck off!" His voice had adapted a shrill and high-pitched tone Sam had never heard before.

"Dean," Sam tried again. He grabbed his brother by his shoulders. Dean tried to fight him off, but there was no strength left in him so the attempt turned into a helpless struggle. The realisation made Sam's heart ache. Dean averted his his eyes and turned his head to the side, his arms were lifted and protecting his head.

"Fuck off!" he barked. "You're dead, leave me alone!"

"Dean!" Sam's voice was now as loud as Dean's. "I'm not dead, Goddammit!"

But Dean wasn't even listening. "No, no, no..." he muttered, over and over again. His eyes were tightly shut so he wouldn't have to look at Sam, whom he apparently believed to be a ghost. Sam wasn't surprised at all. With everything they'd seen he'd been more than a little shocked if Dean had actually believed him straight away. He tried a different approach.

"Listen to me, Dean. " He shook his brother slightly to gain his attention and it seemed to work. Dean grew still, even if he was still refusing to look at Sam, and appeared to be willing to hear Sam out. "I'm not a ghost, Dean. You know that ghosts are bound to a specific place. And I can't be a skinwalker because you know that skinwalkers need their victims alive, so that would mean even if I weren't Sam, he'd still have to be alive." Neither explanation was necessarily true, there were always exceptions, Sam knew that and he was quite certain Dean knew that, too, but he was hoping that since Dean was so upset and afraid he'd forget about that. At least until Sam had convinced him that it was really, really him.

Dean froze. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up to Sam. Distrust written all over his face, and something that Sam decided to be hope – eagerness to believe, but too much fear he might be disappointed. _Again_.

"I never died, Dean. You remember the fire in the house?" Well, that was possibly the most stupid question he could have asked. In fact, Sam was fairly sure all this here had only happened because Dean did remember so well. But he had the distinct feeling that Dean was hungry for an explanation that would make his brother be alive again, something he could believe. If he could keep Dean listening there was a chance he'd realise Sam had actually found him. "There was the spirit of a dead girl, one of the murdered girls. When I was pulled into the fire she helped me. She took my hand and guided me through the fire to the back door. I ran, I didn't know where I was going because I was in so much pain, I ran into the woods and I stumbled and fell. I hit my head and when I woke up I couldn't remember a thing, not even my name. I was in hospital for weeks until my social worker provided me with a job in Chris' record store…"

Dean jerked.

"...Do you remember the last time you went there? On the way out you bumped into someone. That someone was me. The new employee Chris told you about, that was me. After that I began to remember things, and I started looking for you, then I had a vision and I came here. It's me, Dean. I'm Sam."

Dean still hadn't said a word, but his face was turned towards Sam and he was listening. So Sam told him the story again. And again. He repeated it until his mouth hurt, until his throat seemed all dry and sore. Finally, when Sam was already feeling dizzy and beginning to fear that Dean would never believe him, Dean slumped. The tension left his body, and a sob escaped his lungs. He averted his face again and pulled his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them. And then he began to tremble again, worse than before.

"Dean?" Sam asked, his forehead twisted into a frown. Then he understood. Dean was crying. Silently, without a sound. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, but he didn't say anything. He didn't look at Sam. He just cried.

On the way here Sam had imagined all possible scenarios of how Dean would react when he found out Sam was still alive. But this silent crying hadn't been in any of them. This quiet suffering.

And now he was kneeling in front of his brother who was so alone in his despair, and Sam didn't know what to do.

Finally he positioned himself so he was sitting next to Dean, and then he put his right arm around Dean's shoulders and pulled his brother closer. Dean didn't fight the embrace. The moment his forehead touched Sam's chest he seemed to realise this was real and really happening, and all dams broke. He burst into helpless tears, his body shaking violently. His hands were holding on to Sam's shirt and he sobbed loudly, his face was pressed against Sam's shirt now, drenching it in salty tears. Sam wrapped his arms around Dean's body, curling around his back, feeling the bumps of his spine that were sticking out. Sam's chin rested on the top of Dean's head, and eventually he began to rock Dean gently. "Everything's going to be fine," he soothed, "Everything's going to be fine, Dean. It's over now." Dean nodded faintly, and suddenly he seemed so fragile and small to Sam. Or maybe he'd always been like that and Sam had just never noticed. He couldn't say.

The trembling stopped and so did the sobbing. It took Sam a couple of minutes until he realised Dean had fallen asleep. But Sam didn't free himself from the embrace. Instead he pulled Dean closer. He'd been so close to losing him. It still scared the hell out of him when he thought of it.

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:** Thank you Ruth for the awesome beta.

This was first posted on livejournal, in case you should find it familiar.

**Note:** All sixteen chapters have already been written, edited and betad. I'm not just done uploading yet :-)

**Long Way Down, Long Way Home  
Chapter Sixteen**  
by Steffi

Someone was knocking on the door. Sam – pulled from his sleep – opened his eyes and blinked. There was another knock on the door. Sam turned over and saw that Dean was still fast asleep in his bed, blanket pulled up to his chin. Sam smiled and got to his feet. Rubbing sleep from his eyes he walked over to the door, unlocked and opened it – and faced his father standing outside in the darkness. Sam reckoned he must have slept for some hours at least.

"Dad." Sam said, backing off a little so his father could step in.

His dad entered, hands in his pockets. After Sam had closed the door his father turned around, and for a moment they both just looked at each other in silence. Sam thought that his dad seemed tired, not unlike Dean.

"Don't you... want to say 'Christo' at least, or splash some holy water in my face to make sure I'm not a demon?" Sam finally asked. His dad just grinned and shook his head.

"Don't have to. After Dean's phone call I went to Missouri. I hoped she could help me find him. She told me you were still alive."

The corner of Sam's mouth twisted into a smile. Trust his father to try the practical approach.

"I'm just so glad she was right," his father added quietly before he crossed the distance between himself and Sam and pulled him into a tight hug. He held Sam tightly as if he never wanted to let go again, and Sam returned the embrace.

It now seemed absurd he'd ever considered not telling his family he was still alive. Sam's eyes filled with tears now, and he buried his face in hid father's jacket that smelled like coffee and gunpowder and warmth. A great weight was lifted from Sam's shoulders now that his dad was here, and for once in his life he didn't doubt that his dad would make everything all right. He was no longer alone. He felt like he had given everything he had.

"How's Dean?" his dad finally asked, freeing himself from the embrace. Sam ran his arm over his eyes before he answered: "The fever's gone but..." His voice thickened and he had to concentrate for a moment before he could vocalise what he was trying to say. "I think he ... he was finished, Dad. It was a close call."

"Christ..."

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

They both sat down on Sam's bed, facing Dean. Their shoulders were touching and Sam would have liked to rest his head on his father's shoulder, just to feel the solid weight of his dad being right there. But he wasn't sure whether Dad would have allowed it. They both watched Dean in his sleep for a while, until Sam heard his father's voice:

"I tried to find him. I tried to find you, Sammy. But I didn't know where to begin. You gotta understand, Sam, I couldn't just put your photo in the newspapers. There's still cops looking for you and Dean, and it might have gotten you into trouble, and your brother, too. Dean's still wanted for murder and I didn't want to put his life in jeopardy. I called all my contacts, asked them whether you guys had been seen but...it was like both of you had just vanished. I was worried sick."

He paused and took a deep breath. "You can't imagine how relieved I was when I got your phone call. Just..." his voice trailed off.

"Just what?" Sam enquired.

"Just..." He bit his lower lip before answered, "...I can't believe Dean wouldn't talk to me. He was running from me, wasn't he? What kind of a father does that make me?"

Sam shifted uncomfortably. "I don't think he was thinking rationally." he offered.

"I guess the problem is that he was, just like I taught him."

Sam didn't reply, because he couldn't deny that his dad had a point there.

"How did you find him?"

Sam cleared his throat, his hands fumbled for the blanket. He didn't want to make things worse for his dad and knew he had to.

"I had this vision one night. He was in an abandoned motel, and the spirit nearly killed him. Tried to hang Dean. But... I think if the spirit hadn't killed Dean, something else would have soon." Sam said, and his dad nodded.

"Yes."

"He hasn't taken care of himself, has he?" Sam asked. Dad shook his head and ran his right hand through his face.

"No, he hasn't. He's done everything but that."

"His body is covered in bruises, Dad. He looks like he's been through hell."

"I would assume he has, Sam."

Sam watched as Dad wordlessly moved over to Dean's bed. He sat down on the edge there, took off his jacket and threw it onto the floor. His eyes were fixed on Dean for a moment before he carefully put his right hand on Dean's arm. Dean frowned in his sleep but his face relaxed again quickly and he didn't wake.

"I never taught him he could be fine on his own," Sam heard his father mutter, more to himself, and his voice sounded fragile, much like Dean's. Sam remained silent, because what was he supposed to say to that? "It's not your fault, Dad"? It would have been a lie. Even if their Dad had never meant for things to be like this, for years he'd done his best to make Dean believe he only mattered to his father as long as he was taking care of Sam. When Sammy was gone, Sam concluded, Dean must have presumed that Dad wouldn't want to have anything to do with him any more

Sam saw how his father's hand wandered along Dean's arm up to his face. He put the palm of his hand against Dean's cheek, Dean's lips moved as if he wanted to say something. Then their Dad pushed some strands of hair out of Dean's face. Sam held his breath.

For as long as he could think back, their Dad had always treated Dean like a grown-up. Sam had never witnessed his dad being so gentle and careful with Dean, and the scene felt so surreal Sam pinched his arm to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"Dean." Dad said, and his baritone resounded in the room, "Dean?"

Dean frowned again - and then he blinked, and opened his eyes. His pupils searched for something to fix on, and when they did and Dean saw his father sitting next to him his face lost all the colour it had gained during his sleep. Dean stiffened instantly, his eyes widened and he tried to slide away from his dad but his father wouldn't let him.

"Dean." he said again.

When Dean realised that there was no chance he could escape his father's presence he began to shake with fear, and the only thing he finally managed to say was a barely audible: "I'm so sorry." His breathing was laboured, going in heavy rasps. He sounded like he was about to cry again, desperate and scared, and he tried to pull his arm from his father's grip but his dad held on to his arm firmly.

"What are you sorry for?" he asked, even though Sam was sure he already knew the answer.

"Sam –" Dean stuttered, panicking, " –I'm so sorry...I didn't mean... and I tried to make up for it but... they're so many, too many..."

The helplessness and fear in Dean's voice broke Sam's heart, because everything began to make sense. Everything. He swallowed down some tears, and knelt beside the bed so that Dean could see him.

"I'm here."

Dean glanced from Sam to his dad and back to Sam, like he couldn't understand. "I'm dreaming." he whispered. It wasn't a question, it was a conclusion.

"You're not dreaming." Sam said, feeling it was his turn to speak now. He, too, put his hand on Dean's arm to reassure him he was really there. Dean's skin was still warm from his earlier fever, and Sam curled his fingers around Dean's arm, he didn't know why but it seemed important. He wasn't going to let go. "Do you remember earlier? What I told you about the fire?"

Dean stared at Sam, slightly shaking his head, and then he focused his eyes on his father again. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." he muttered over and over again.

"Dean." Dad's voice was definite, and Dean fell silent immediately. He seemed to shrink in front of Sam's eyes, the way he pulled his shoulders and legs up. And then there was Dad, who wouldn't avert his eyes, and Dean, who couldn't. Dean gulped and Sam was shocked to find that now his dad looked as if he was about to cry.

"It's _me_ who ought to be sorry, Dean. And I am." He paused, and glanced over to Sam who was nodding encouragingly. Dad turned towards Dean again, his hand now holding onto Dean's. "Do you hear me, Dean? I'm so sorry."

Dean's lips parted in surprise, and he looked at Sam seeking for help. But Sam just smiled, and then their Dad spoke again.

"Don't ever do that again, Dean, okay?" He pressed Dean's hand a little, "Promise. Promise you'll never do that again."

Dean looked as if he couldn't understand what was happening to him. "I promise." he answered quietly.

"Promise me, too." Sam said. A grin flickered across Dean's face and it made Sam's heart jump a little.

"You too."

Sam laughed quietly with relief, then he noticed how desperately Dean was trying to stay awake. Their Dad saw it too, apparently because he said, "Get some rest, son. Get some sleep."

"I'm not tired." Dean mumbled in weak protest, and was drifting into a peaceful slumber just a few moments later. His breathing evened out and a content expression was on his face that Sam hadn't seen in the day since he'd found Dean. Dad ran his hand through Dean's lank hair gently, so as to not wake him. He seemed to be lost in thought, but suddenly he turned his head to face Sam.

"You should get some sleep, too, Sammy."

Sam shook his head stubbornly. "I'm fine." he lied. He'd never felt so utterly exhausted in his whole life.

"I'm not going anywhere, Sam. And I'll wake you when Dean wakes up, I promise."

Normally he would have put up a fight, but things were different now. Dad was here, he was taking care of Dean. And the prospect of falling asleep not having to worry about Dean was too tempting. So Sam nodded, and crawled into bed. He didn't even bother to change his clothes, he was just so damn tired. He closed his eyes, thinking that, in moments like these, he had the best family in the whole world, and fell asleep to the sound of his dad quietly humming a Johnny Cash song.

THE END

Well, what can I say? Thank you to everyone who's stuck with this story, and for the reviews. They mean a whole lot to me :-)


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